Meet Nike Morris (pronounced Nick), one of the co-founders of MindKind Project, which specialises in mental wellbeing within the workplace and the community.
Nike is a social worker by background and his belief that people should be supported in a more preventative and upstream way, led him to working within the voluntary and community sector.
He is hugely passionate about the work he does and the people he meets along the way. He believes you should never underestimate the power of positive relationships when it comes to mental wellbeing.
Here he tells us more about himself and the work that MindKind do to support the citizens of Walsall:
“I was born in the Black Country, grew up in social housing and was the only person in my family to go to university. From a young age, my mom would talk to us about the idea of social justice, so growing up I had a good sense of right and wrong and a strong belief in fairness and equity.”
After travelling far and wide, Nike settled back in Walsall, and set up an organisation in banking and utilities. However, he soon realised this wasn’t the job for him and after googling jobs that help people, and talking to his family and friends, he decided that becoming a social worker was more aligned with his values.
“I knew that being a social worker was a good fit for me. After qualifying, I worked in Birmingham in some of the most deprived areas. It was challenging but enjoyable and I got to meet some amazing people. It also allowed me to really see what health inequality and the social determinants of health looked like in practice working across diverse areas.
“Specialising in mental health, my role was to support people who had been in a mental health hospital, back into the community. It’s a time in peoples lives when they are really vulnerable and often community and good relationships are needed. Mental health stigma is still so strong that building someone’s self esteem and healthy personal connections is essential but often difficult.”
Although Nike enjoyed the work, he found it frustrating at times too.
“I was astounded and troubled by the number of people who we could have helped avoid crisis and active services had culturally competent, person centred services been in places early in the citizens journey, It reached the point where my light bulb moment led to action”
Based on his experiences, Nike knew he wanted to work in a more preventative way, so he co-founded MindKind; which has a Community Centre in the Birchills/Leamore area.
“Prevention is all about capacity and social capital building. Most of the work we do follows a formula of supporting someone with their immediate issues that are impacting their wellbeing. Then we work on building self confidence through meaningful activity and connections with a view to build personal capacity, resilience and self advocacy and move forward in life.
“My personal and professional experiences show that health and wellbeing is not always equitable from a systemic level. In order to engage and support individuals and communities most impacted by health inequalities and the social determinants of health we co-produce everything we do. Our staff are from the area we support and have lived experience and we strive hard to make sure we deliver in a culturally competent way.
“I find the term ‘hard to reach’ problematic - ‘failed to reach’ is sometimes more appropriate, despite good intentions and efforts. As a community based VCSE organisation we work very hard to be ‘of’ the community and a connector between individuals and communities and statutory services.”
MindKind deliver a wide range of courses including language, confidence, mental health and well-being support as well as run social and peer to peer support groups. They are actively involved in social prescribing and helping it to reach its potential for the people of Walsall.
Nike is also a researcher for the Royal College of Art and as part of that is looking at green solutions for mental wellbeing. He is passionate about ensuring access to nature for wellbeing reasons, is equitable. They have a community garden at Birchills and run men’s nature walks for wellbeing. They are also the founders of the Nature’s Way Platform, which helps people to access nature-based solutions, to support one another and mental health and wellbeing.
In the little spare time that he does have Nike likes to spend it with his family and practising what he preaches.
“I am really into nature, so I love to go camping, wild swimming and climbing mountains. One of my favourite things to do is walk through the lime pits in Walsall and I often take people along with me from my nature groups.
“I used to be a little bit more rock and roll in my younger years but to be honest, I really love my role. I am very happy reading research articles at night and on the weekend."
If you would like to find out more about MindKind, and the work they do, you can visit www.themindkindprojects.com
