Hello everyone 👋

Welcome to the latest newsletter

Once again we find ourselves heading into the autumn proper. I hope you’ve unpacked those wellies (did we ever really pack them away?) ready for scrunching through leaves and sloshing through puddles.

I have a question for you all; feel free to answer by email, phone or text but I would really love to hear from you if you have time and you would like to share your thoughts.

If you are not currently involved in activities or projects with us right now but you are interested in our work. We'd like to know - is there something you’d like to see from us? Anything you'd like to have the opportunity to be involved with? Or hear that we are doing that relates to you? Such as:

Interesting talks about research and knowledge?
More social activities and get-togethers?
Things you can easily join or drop into online?
Face to face things at the Institute or out and about locally to you?

Maybe you have seen something anywhere else or things you think we should be doing more of, or you have a burning idea of something you’d like to be part of. Please don’t be shy – get in touch and tell me what you think!

But for now, here’s what we have got for you this October…

Involvement at the Institute updates:

East Midlands Cancer Alliance Centre (EMCAH) for Psychosocial Health in an award

I’m delighted to share with you all that the East Midlands Cancer Alliance Centre for Psychosocial Health were recently named Runners Up in the Picker Engagement Network awards for 2025. The team were finalists and ultimately runners up in the category Engaging and Championing the Public. I have been working with the team since they began their plans in setting up the Patient Involvement Collaborative and I’m delighted for the team and everyone in their PIC group for the recognition of their hard work and determined approach to properly involve patients from their service. I was lucky enough to accompany some of the team to their awards ceremony and I have had my eyes opened to so many patient-led and patient centred projects across the country.

If you’d like to find out more about Picker and these awards you can take a look at the website here.

Digital Youth X MindTech event – Thursday 13th November 2025

Digital risk, resilience, and interventions: co-creating change in youth mental health. Thursday 13 November 2025, County Hall, London

📅 Thursday 13th November, 09:30-16:30
📍 County Hall, London Southbank
➡️ More information on the MindTech website

The Digital Youth and MindTech Conference 2025 still has places available, and anyone is welcome to attend; patients, younger people, staff, researchers and anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into one of these categories.

The event is taking place face to face in London (County Hall, SE1 7BP) and is a ticketed event. There are still tickets remaining for students and charities @£20 per person.

The agenda for the event can be found on the MindTech website and if it’s the type of thing that interests you, do get in touch with the team.
You can email the team to find out more or book a ticket MS-MindTech@nottingham.ac.uk

Nottingham event in November 2025

Diversify CIC are a Nottingham based organisation working out of their base at Beechdale Community Centre. Shanine Fasasi and her team at Diversify are doing great things in their local community and reaching more and more people. With their Dads and Lads, Thrive activities and generally offering the community something to do and somewhere to go it was great to visit them and see a team doing good things!

The team at Diversify are organising an event on Saturday 22nd November 2025 at Eastwood Hall and the event is called “Brother, You Good? – Redefining Strength. Restoring Minds.” The event is focusing on Men’s mental health and especially Black men’s mental health led by the community of men at Diversify.

This should be a good event and the IMH will have a stall at the event too, so if this interests you for any reason then do register and go along to the event. Hopefully I’ll see you there!

Register to attend the Diversify event

Scrambles would like to invite you to the launch of its most recent photography exhibition called Seasons 2025.

📅 Exhibition: 3rd October - 27th November 2025
📍 Café Sobar

There will be a launch event at Café Sobar on Thursday 9th October from 2-4pm which will be an opportunity to meet the photographers involved and to find out more about the group Scrambles.

The exhibition runs from Friday 3rd October to Thursday 27th November and Café Sobar is at 24 Friar Lane, Nottingham NG1 6DQ. Just by the Friar Lane bus stops in the city centre.

More about Scrambles:

Scrambles is a peer-led support group for people living with mental illness. The group was founded in 2018 and uses photography to bring people together to provide mutual support, reduce isolation, foster a sense of community & belonging and to empower individuals.

Scrambles is currently part of a Suicide Prevention project funded by Nottinghamshire County Council.

Please forward this email to anyone you think may be interested. For more information regarding Scrambles, please email Alyn Mulholland at scrambles18@yahoo.com

Opportunities to support research, services and participate in research:

NEUROMS research – inviting people to help with research to identify problems with attention, memory and thinking!

The Neuroms research team are inviting people:

Aged 18 or over
Do not have MS
Do not have any cognitive problems
Can understand English
Can use a tablet or phone to do some puzzles (Symbol Substitution Tasks and Word Colour Tasks)

To help the team develop ways of identifying problems with remembering things, learning new things, paying attention and concentrating. The team have developed a way of assessing these problems electronically on mobile devices using these games and answering some questions.

The team are hoping that these puzzles can be used in the NHS to help people with Multiple Sclerosis and if you’re interested in helping with this research you can sign up to participate using this link: Neuroms puzzle research

[click for a larger web view]

TrueBlue participation

The ‘TrueBlue' clinical study is using AI to detect early-stage post-natal depression and the team are now seeking participants to take part in their research.

The study will invite participants to use an AI-powered app, called TrueBlue, to monitor their mental wellbeing during pregnancy and the postpartum period (6-8 weeks after baby is born).

The study is now open for its main phase, recruiting up to 125 participants, including those with a current diagnosis of depression.

If you are currently pregnant (from 12 weeks) or in the postpartum period and you’re interested in this study then do get in touch with the TrueBlue team using this form or by email or phone using TrueBlue@nottingham.ac.uk or 0115 748 6749.

Taking part in Research with the NIHR

The NIHR recently wrote about why everyone should take part in research in one of their newsletters. You can see the article on their website and read more about some of their studies reaching more people for more reasons to help more of our population.

Why research needs everyone - Be Part of Research

And finally...

The Patient's Association have recently shared a really useful guide about “Finding trustworthy information online” For many of us, being on the internet and finding information online can be quite normal, however with the arrival of AI generated search responses, sometimes we don’t always find what we think we are looking for. Some of the tips and advice (and direct websites at the end of the article) might be useful for you and others so feel free to take a look….

Also, Autistica has published an incredibly well written blog challenging some of the things being shared online at the moment and comparing them to what we know through science. If you’re interested to read more about the scientific information relating to autism and maternal health do pop over to the Autistica website to read their work.

Until next time,

Kate