A “community bridge building” service, providing a bridge for service users from statutory mental health services to what has been described as “the mainstream” or community services and opportunities.

People who use this service will be helped to identify their social inclusion needs and be matched to services and opportunities in the community that meet their recovery aspirations.

Active advice and support will be offered to help each individual to make the right links to mainstream opportunities (eg getting appropriate training and education, support in finding and sustaining paid employment).

Everyone using this service will have an assessment and will be allocated a key worker who will help to make a personal development plan. Service users will be offered skills development (for example: motivational interviewing; interpersonal skills development; time management skills) and written referrals will be made, as appropriate, to other services.

People who are receiving a service from the Integrated Adult Mental Health Service (IAMHS), whose case is being managed by a care co-ordinator.

Drop-in services will provide a base from which users can develop and increase their confidence and skills, without specific expectations or pressure. These services will increase confidence and independence and decrease social isolation.

Service users are welcome to:

• come and go as they please
• meet people who will listen when they want to talk
• enjoy a place that will accept them as they are
• a place with clear and respectful guidelines
• real opportunities to have a say in the running of the organisation

Anybody who has, or is recovering from, mental illness or distress

Open access - anybody who feels they have, or are recovering from, mental illness or distress

The four drop-in services will provide a safe place to go, sometimes referred to as a safe haven, for people in various stages of recovery from mental ill health. The aim is to provide a base from which users can develop and increase their confidence and skills, without specific expectations or pressure. The desired outcomes are that these services will increase confidence and independence and decrease social isolation, maintaining the community spirit and environment that many users have stated as an important part of their life. This will reduce dependence on secondary mental health services.

Staff and volunteers will provide certain types of advice and signposting to appropriate services, supplemented by occasional visiting advice and information sessions from external experts on subjects such as welfare benefits.

Each drop-in will have an inclusion worker to provide support as appropriate and to have one to one meetings with individuals regarding individual needs in respect of community inclusion. Each new group will be staffed from the outset by at least one support worker at all times when the group is open. Over time, drop-in services will be encouraged to develop greater levels of user involvement with professional support as needed.

Anybody who has, or is recovering from, mental illness or distress

The services will be open access, including self referral and GP referral for any people with mental health needs.

This service will help service users to find paid employment, and will work with service users and their employers to help them stay in work once they have found it.

The service’s employment advisors will use their person centred planning skills to help service users achieve their employment aspirations, primarily by bringing them into contact with potential employers, but also by helping service users to find the education, training, or work experience they need to get the job they want. All work with employment advisors will be within the framework of the Care Programme Approach (CPA), and within a care plan developed by their care co-ordinator. Service users may expect to receive intensive support from an employment advisor for up to two years.

This service will help service users to find paid employment, and will work with service users and their employers to help them stay in work once they have found it.

The service’s employment advisors will use their person centred planning skills to help service users achieve their employment aspirations, primarily by bringing them into contact with potential employers, but also by helping service users to find the education, training, or work experience they need to get the job they want. All work with employment advisors will be within the framework of the Care Programme Approach (CPA), and within a care plan developed by their care co-ordinator. Service users may expect to receive intensive support from an employment advisor for up to two years.

The volunteering service will provide service users with the opportunity to volunteer their services within an appropriate organisation in a community setting. The agencies concerned will be health-checked for ‘good practice’ procedures, and should have an awareness of the benefits of involving people with mental health needs with appropriate opportunities within their organisation.

The service will offer volunteering experiences in a wide range of organisations that will attempt to meet the interests/needs of as many users as possible. Support will include:

• information about volunteering opportunities;
• exploring volunteering needs, linking to future goals;
• supporting with the application process;
• matching to suitable placements;
• setting up and accompanying people to interviews.

People with a wide range of experiences and motives for volunteering. The volunteering service will also be restricted to the 18- 65 age group for new users of the services, unless they are referred by IAMHS aged 65 plus.

The Befriending service will provide service users with the opportunity to link with another individual who can help them to form social networks and to build their confidence, reduce feelings of isolation, and help them to ‘move on’ with their lives.

The aim is to empower people, with the expectation that they will eventually access more mainstream services, accessing community opportunities in sports, leisure, culture, faith, education etc.

The Befriending service will provide service users with the opportunity to link with another individual.

The befriender will be a volunteer from the community who will receive the relevant training, who is interested in the area of mental health and has the skills to provide the support required.

A befriender can be a trained volunteer, a former service user or a member of the general public who is prepared to work on a voluntary basis.

Users will have an assessment every 6 months and at 18 months when they (along with their key worker) will be encouraged to consider whether they need to go in another direction or if they need to use the service for a little longer.

The befriending services will be restricted to the 18- 65 age group for new users of the services, unless they are referred by IAMHS aged 65 plus.

This service will help service users to increase and improve their experiences of life away from specialist mental health services, particularly in areas of education, volunteering, arts and culture, faith, family and neighbourhood, and physical activity.

The service’s staff will help service users through person centred planning techniques. Service users may expect to be signposted, introduced, escorted or accompanied to any service, activity or experience that will help them to reduce their dependence on and use of specialist mental health services, as appropriate to their needs. All work with staff will be within the framework of the Care Programme Approach (CPA), and within a care plan developed by their care co-ordinator. Service users may expect to receive intensive support from staff for up to two years.

The core of the service will manage a caseload of clients referred from the CBB service and they will have been referred because they have expressed an interest in pursuing leisure interests.

Mind Fairfield Club is a social club that provides meaningful day time activities to local residents with mental health problems, mostly referred through local statutory mental health services. The service is commissioned to develop independence in clients and promote their social inclusion whilst supporting their recovery.

• A social programme of activities to include art and crafts, day trips, sports competitions, computer training, internet access, and special interest groups.
• Low cost meal and snack service daily, with the exception of Mondays.
• General advice, for example concerning welfare benefits, and housing.
• Refer and signpost clients to help that can’t be provided by Club staff.
• Support with tenancies, neighbour disputes, managing a home, welfare benefit issues, budgeting and shopping skills, medical appointments etc.
  
  

Mind Fairfield Club and Outreach Services have been closed to new referrals since May 2009. The service will remain open to existing Members, but will not accept any new referrals.

A temporary specialist service which will focus on older people as a separate group, with the aim of helping them in the longer term to access services for older people or other mixed age services.

An overall aim of the new social inclusion / day services in Croydon will be to assist people to make optimum use of mainstream opportunities, whether these are age specific or in mixed age groups.

It is recognised that, for some older people currently using adult mental health day services, this aim may take time to achieve and hitherto it has been difficult for some people to make progress in this direction.

• Group sessions
• Individual support to enable people to use local community facilities.
  

Adults aged 65 years and over, although there will be some flexibility in age limits for a small number of “generationally affected” people with complex needs aged 55 and over

The service will be only for people using adult mental health day services to Autumn 2009, and for whom an individual review of need has indicated that the Older People’s Transition Services will best meet their mental health needs.
Further referrals will only be accepted in exceptional circumstances.

Healthy Minds Productions is a social club that provides meaningful day time activities to local residents from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities with mental health problems.

It is commissioned to improve mental health and well-being and improve access to services for the BME communities especially regarding mental health.

Support, befriending, social group, art and photography, workshops, music, pottery, healthy cooking, sports and opportunities for volunteering, advocacy, training and mentoring.

Black and ethnic minority people who have experienced or are experiencing mental health problems.

The Croydon SUN project is for people who have longstanding emotional and behavioural problems (with or without a formal diagnosis of Personality Disorder), and aims to reduce feelings of isolation and ‘being stuck’ in unhelpful or harmful behaviour patterns. It provides an opportunity for people who have had similar difficult experiences to support one another and to learn new skills and better ways of coping, as well as helping one another with practical issues such as housing, benefits and employment etc. The people who have started attending the groups have already said that they find them supportive and beneficial.

Open access - anybody who feels they have, or are recovering from, mental illness or distress
Please Contact: James Forrester
Phone: 0203 228 8541 / 8542