‘Digging Deep’: The Ipamo Project, 1995-2002
Ipamo’s vision foregrounded an understanding of ‘the importance of the physical, social, inner and spiritual dimensions in people’s lives’. The organisation developed its policies and practises ‘based on past and present knowledge and experience of effective interventions with Black people’. The service worked to actively incorporate the cultural needs of patients into treatment, synthesising the contributions of service-users into its policy and direction. At the project’s initiation, seven key objectives were agreed upon by the Management Committee. These were an outcome of the period of community consultation which had preceded Ipamo’s formal initiation.
“1. To offer a place of safety for section 136 assessments.
2. To provide crisis intervention, respite care and advice for carers, users and their families.
3. To provide a ‘calming down’ period and therapy and/or assessment wherever appropriate.
4. To offer support including 24 hour care for those recommended to stay a period of up to three weeks.
5. To provide high-quality care which includes home treatment with an outreach element.
6. To carefully monitor the effectiveness of this service.
7. To closely involve other voluntary and statatory agencies as necessary.”
From 1995 until December 1998, Melba Wilson served as the Secretary, Company Secretary and Executive member of Ipamo, a Lambeth based organization which worked to improve mental health treatment for Black communities in the borough. Ipamo is a Yoruba word meaning ‘a place of healing or safety’ and at the core of Ipamo’s mission was to set up an alternative to hospital for African Caribbean communities in Lambeth, which was owned managed and run by the Black community.
Initiation
After a period of community consultation managed by The King’s Fund, (a health and social care think tank) alongside a Partnership Committee made up of Black community organisations, mental health service users, the local authority, the local NHS Trust and Health Commission, a plan for a service which could suitably address the needs of Black communities in Lambeth was drawn up. In January 1995 Ipamo was formally established, and the previous Partnership Committee dissolved itself in March 1996 giving ownership of the developing service to a new Black-led Management Committee.
