What is this guide about?

This guide describes a range of social inclusion services, commissioned to support service users with their recovery from mental health problems. These services are often known as day services or day care. The guide does not include services which support some areas of social inclusion, such as housing, financial and benefits advice.

What is the purpose of these services, and who are they for?

These services are for people who need the support of mental health services to realise their self-defined goals and move towards their recovery. People who use these services will be assisted to identify their own strengths and to build on them the recovery pathway.  Services will aim to help people make this journey at the pace that is right for them.Some services (Croydon Community Opportunities Service, services for employment support, volunteering, befriending, social networks and a transition service for older people) are for people who are ready to move forward at a comparatively faster rate. They will be tailored to individual needs.

Open access drop-in services will offer a “safe place to go”: a setting where service users can feel supported by other group members and appropriately trained staff, who can offer support and signposting to other services. Over time, drop-in services will develop greater levels of user involvement with professional support provided as needed.

Who will be able to use these services?

a) All users of services that are due to be replaced:
People using services from Lantern Hall, the Social Development Team, Mind Fairfield Club and Enterprise House will be eligible for at least one of the new services. Everyone in this situation will receive an ‘Individual Review of Needs’, which will help to identify which of the new range of services will be most appropriate.  Service users may be referred to any of the services described in this guide, or to other services and community opportunities suited to their needs, identified through the Review process.  People may be transferred between services where necessary.

b) New referrals, once the new range of services has been launched:
New referrals to the services that are designed to move people forward  will be people whose care is co-ordinated through the Care Programme Approach (CPA) – that is people who are most in need, who are actually or potentially most socially excluded by virtue of their level of mental illness and/or the complexity of their social care needs. Anyone who uses one of the services that are designed to move people forward will be able to stay in that service until their programme is complete, even if they are discharged from the medical care of the Integrated Adult Mental health Service (IAMHS) during that time.

Drop-in services will be open access, for people who refer themselves, or are referred by professional staff, including those from secondary mental health or from primary care. The drop-in services will not therefore be limited to people whose care is co-ordinated through CPA.

How will the new range of services be co-ordinated, and monitored?

1.      Steering group:
To help the new services work as well as possible with each other, it is proposed that a permanent steering group is formed to oversee the smooth running along the ‘pathways’ between services. It is envisaged that the group will act as a forum or mechanism to manage, and share the risks that may arise if a service receives too many referrals, or too few. Where it is clear that elements of the system are not working, it will be the responsibility of commissioners to plan further changes. The group will help commissioners to move to a position where a broader range of service users, not just those on CPA, will be able to access the services that are designed to move people forward.

2. Service output / outcome targets and measurement: 
All providers of commissioned services will be expected to submit some data in common, to reach specified activity levels (eg. number of sessions to be offered, numbers of people attending and turnover rates) and to move towards monitoring outcomes (that is measuring the extent to which services affect service users). Outcomes (measured for all individuals) will include: rates of employment; increased take up of adult education courses, forming or strengthening of positive relationships with friends or family, increased self confidence and more active engagement with the wider community.