May 2025 saw the Personality and Trauma Response (PTR) Team celebrate its first anniversary!
PTR, within Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, delivers Portsmouth’s Complex Emotional Needs Service.
The team has its roots in the Improving Mental Health in Portsmouth Project and was developed through several pieces of coproduction to where it is now: a team of people with lived and learned experience, employed to tackle priorities chosen by the people of our city.
These priorities broadly included improving the choice of, and access to, services improving the experiences of people using those services and transitioning between or out of them, and bolstering their support networks in the work they are already doing. This led into three main strands:
Recovery College: The team expanded Solent Recovery College’s offer, delivering classes on personality disorder and recovery more generally, increasing the free recovery-focussed education open to all adults in Portsmouth. Our involvement allowed Solent Recovery College to offer classes over the summer holidays and into the next academic year. The hope is to increase PTR’s involvement as Solent Recovery College merges with The Recovery College (under the former Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust).
Two recent pieces of feedback received from students:
One student told us that we had helped them realise that they were doing much better in their recovery journey than they had thought and that they felt more hopeful for their future than before the class.
Another student told us that they have been using an exercise on mindful shopping that they learned from a member of PTR and that it’s made a big impact in their life. They have been able to go shopping for the first time in “years”, having previously ordered online or got family to shop for them.
Together Space: These are therapeutic group programmes, currently for people under secondary care mental health services, using the Occupational Science model of Doing, Being, Becoming, Belonging (DB3). Through delivering community projects which they themselves have chosen, our members develop their sense of self-worth, skills, agency and being part of our community through this alternative to talking therapy.
Project One
PTR members have started to improve the outdoor space at Hamble House, the new home for Talking Therapies in Portsmouth:
Comments from the Talking Therapies Team:
“heartwarming”
“made me smile”
“brings me joy”
“an inspirational idea that will promote the importance of seeing our staff and patients as people…”
“makes such a difference”
Project Two
Members arranged and ran a fundraising sale to support Project W – Women Empowering Women, selling art that they have made, earning around £250 for this cause!
While hosting this sale, Together Space members spoke to members of the public about the project and about their own mental health, showcasing real compassion and connection.
Team Around the Worker: The next phase is to build support for those already working with and supporting people who experience difficulties relating to personality disorders, trauma, and/or complex emotional needs.
To those of you have already given feedback on what they would find most useful – thank you! That feedback has shaped our first steps. To anyone else working with this group, we’d love to hear what would support you! If you have any thoughts, please email us at PTRTeam@solent.nhs.uk
Developing the team’s skills and building this new service over the last year has been so rewarding. The team is very much looking forward to continuing working together for the local community over the coming year.