About Us

Hear Us is Croydon’s Mental Health Service User Group which acts as a coordinating body to facilitate, and ensure service users involvement in, the planning, delivery and monitoring of mental health services in Croydon. Helping to improve the quality of the services commissioned and delivered in Croydon.

We attend regular committee meetings with South London and Maudsley Trust (SLAM) and NHS Southwest London ICS, and other planning and monitoring meetings to represent the voice of service users by ensuring service user representation at these meetings.

Hear Us is service user run charity supporting adults with serious mental health challenges to access financial, health and social inclusion support within the borough of Croydon. We act to increase awareness of mental health.

Welfare surgeries project supports people with their benefits claims and other financial entitlements to ensure they obtain the right financial support. This includes access to foodbanks, energy vouchers and other forms of immediate financial support and access to mobility schemes eg freedom passes. This enables vulnerable people to keep warm, pay their bills and put food on the table.

The Linkworking project supports people on the wards and in the community to obtain the right care and treatment from mental health, acute and primary care services.

The monthly Open forum provides a safe space for mental health service users to empower them to have their voice heard and influence the services they receive.

We achieve this by

Offering a safe space for people with severe and enduring mental health conditions to engage with service providers to obtain and influence the services they receive.

Relieving the needs of people living in the London Borough of Croydon and surrounding areas who have mental health problems through advice and practical services

Educating the wider public about mental health to improve their awareness and reduce the stigma attached to mental health

Croydon’s Service User Group for People with Mental Illness.

As Croydon’s only service user group for people with severe and enduring mental illness, our organisation is 100% service user run. This strength gives us a unique insight into the barriers faced by our service users; particularly those also experiencing drug & alcohol misuse or leaving prison. We provide specialist peer support and personal support for our service users – people with complex mental health issues living or working in the London Borough of Croydon. Our practical, regular activities help users to cope better with daily living and helps to relieve their social, emotional and physical needs.

Our determination to help everyone receive fair access to support (whether practical, emotional and social) without prejudice or discrimination is long-proven – for sixteen years our organisation and our committed staff and volunteers have been an integral part of the mental health support jigsaw picture in the London Borough of Croydon.

As the local co-ordinating body for people with severe and enduring mental illness, we facilitate and ensure service users’ voices are included and involved in the planning, delivery and monitoring of mental health services across Croydon.

By effectively representing service users’ needs to providers we aim to improve the quality of the services commissioned and delivered across Croydon. Well-established routes such as our Open Forum or regular evidence submissions to the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM) and Croydon’s Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) lead to positive changes in how service users are treated (please see current achievements listed in more detail under each project section).

We work in close partnership with other organisations across the voluntary sector, such as Mind in Croydon, Off the Record, the Croydon BME Forum, and the local Association of Pastoral Care in Mental Health (APCMH) to ensure service users’ voices are heard. Strong relationships have also been developed and maintained with statutory services such as the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM) and Croydon’s Commissioners, The South West London Integrated Care System (ICS).

We campaign for change and fight against Stigma and Discrimination – one of the many ways we do this is by trying to improve the wider public’s understanding of mental health.

Tim Oldham
CEO
Orchard House
15a Purley Road
South Croydon
Surrey
CR2 6EZ
Tel: 020 8681 6888
Mobile: 07594 373 104
Email: tim@hear-us.org

Charity No. 1135535
Company No. 06891337