What is SEQUOIA?
Sequoia is a new service designed to support people with complex emotional needs and personality difficulties (CEN/PD). Sequoia is an NHS-commissioned service that is delivered in partnership between Rethink Mental Illness and AWP Partnership Trust.
The name comes from the Sequoia tree, a redwood tree that is some of the largest in the world. The name was chosen as those trees represent strength, the ability to cope with adversity, and a life lived best in communities – these values we associate with how people with CEN/PD survive and thrive.
Sequoia is open to everyone in our communities who has CEN/PD. They welcome people from all backgrounds. At the heart of Sequoia is lived experience, it’s been built from the ground up with input from experts by experience throughout, from planning how the service will operate and what it offers to delivery of the support options themselves.
The service is staffed by a mix of Peer Support Workers, Clinicians, Wellbeing Practitioners, Leadership Staff and Administrators.
How can we help?
Your choice on which intervention you feel is important to us. If Sequoia might be right for you, you will be invited to a Welcome Session. At this session, Sequoia staff will discuss the interventions on offer. Sequoia offers three main group support options that you’ll be able to choose from, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) informed course, Peer Support groups, and Understanding Yourself and Others - an interactive learning course. Staff will help you choose between these options. Before each intervention staff will meet with you to discuss the intervention in more depth and check it is the right intervention for you. These meetings are either in person, online, or via a phone call. You will then be invited to the group, these last either 6 weeks,12 weeks, or 14 weeks and are either online or in person.
Once you have finished the group intervention staff will offer to meet with you again to review how things have been and think with you about the next steps. After this review, we ask everyone to have some time to put the things they have learned into practice. This period of consolidation lasts between three to six months, after which time you are welcome to come back and have another Sequoia intervention, either the same one again or a different one.
These support options aren’t a promise of recovery or a fix-all – we know recovery and healing is a hard journeys. However, what they can do is help you connect with others and develop some of the skills you might need to lead a more fulfilling life.
All aspects of Sequoia are co-produced by people who have been through the service, as well as clinicians, leaders from AWP and Rethink, and commissioners. Sequoia always welcomes feedback on the service provided and aims to recruit people who have lived experience of CEN/PD themselves.
Who does Sequoia support?
- People 18+ - no upper age limit
- Without a diagnosis of dementia or significant neurological impairment
- With complex emotional needs/personality difficulties – emerging, mild up to moderate. People are screened with Standardised Assessment of Severity or Personality Disorder (SASPD)
- Person can keep themselves safe within their current support network e.g. not utilizing services such as street triage, ED attendance/psych liaison. (see - Risk to self-safety criteria)
- Drug and alcohol use must be stable / not in active addiction
- Able to work in a group setting. For example - be able to manage feelings and communication, so as not to harm others in the group
Sequoia will engage with local partners to actively engage people whose services have been found more difficult to engage and support them to access Sequoia. There will be a ring-fenced Welcome Session capacity for people whose services are found harder to engage with to enhance their chances of getting to Sequoia.
Sequoia is a small service whose core function is to provide interventions to people. Sequoia can only support people who are currently able to keep themselves safe within that person’s support network. The following is a guide to who Sequoia can and cannot support.
Safety criteria:
- Suicidal thoughts and/or behavior:
× Sequoia cannot support people who are actively suicidal.
✔ Sequoia can work with people who have suicidal thoughts and who have had this discussed in a support conversation. - Self-harm:
× Sequoia cannot support people who are currently presenting with life threatening self harm.
✔ Sequoia can work with people who are self-harming and who have the right support around them from their current network. - Harm to others:
× Sequoia cannot support people who are likely to harm other people in a group setting or outside of that group.
✔ Sequoia can work with people who struggle with anger and are able to control it during interventions with Sequoia.
How do I access Sequoia?
It is predicted there are around 12,000 adults with CEN/PD in BNSSG. Sequoia is opening slowly and sustainably so that the service can provide good quality support to everyone who they work with. To begin with, Sequoia is working with the MINT in each area to identify people who are already referred to the Access Services. People cannot currently be referred to Sequoia directly, but if it is felt Sequoia might be helpful for someone we will let them know. Medium-term Sequoia will open to direct referrals from professionals and longer-term Sequoia hope to accept self-referrals.
Sequoia will eventually be available across North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, and Bristol (BNSSG). The service will be opening in localities in the following order -
Weston-Super-Mare - June
Woodspring – July
South Gloucester – August
Bristol – Between October and January
At this stage please do not contact Sequoia asking for support for yourself or to refer someone. For now please access support within your current network and local services.