Connecting Our City

The Connecting Our City project vision is to improve mental health and wellbeing in York.

The partnership began in 2018, when a group of representatives from across health, social care, the voluntary and community sector, alongside people with lived experience of mental health services, families, and carers, came together to form a collaborative network.

Our aim is to enable people with mental health needs to live well in the city, supported by a range of community-based initiatives.

Our vision for York, is a city where:

• we all feel valued by our community, connected to it, and can help shape it
• we are enabled to help ourselves and others, build on our strengths, and can access support with confidence
• we are proud to have a mental health service that is built around our lives, listens to us, is flexible and responds to all our needs

This partnership meets regularly and has developed different projects and workstreams aimed at improving mental health and wellbeing support in the city. These include:

• The Yor Community Wellbeing Hubs
• Pathway to Recovery project, based at Foss Park Hospital, that provides support to people in the community as they move towards being discharged from hospital
• Co-production network, that ensures the voice of lived experience is at the heart of partnership planning, dialogue, and delivery, shaping services that truly reflect the needs and insights of the community
• Neurodiverse and Mental Health Working Group, supporting the neurodiverse community in York, with inclusive initiatives that foster understanding and wellbeing

The launch of the Connecting Our City project video introduces the Connecting Our City vision: