WRAP Advisor Recruitment
Hear Us Board of Directors/Trustees
Welfare Rights Advice Project (WRAP)
Since 2012, our advisors have provided support to people with severe and enduring mental health conditions to apply for and maintain their welfare benefits and other entitlements. After assessing an individual’s needs, we can provide food bank referrals and referrals to other organisations that provide access to social inclusion services, or access to services that support debt and crisis. We encourage people to ‘do it for themselves’ where they can, so they can grow in self-confidence and soft skills (improving employability) and therefore maintain their health and wellbeing.
We have helped over 3000 people with severe mental illness to access the support and income that they are entitled to. Many need additional support, such as help to read letters or complete forms, where literacy is limited. Others face further problems, such as dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, which means they may face more hurdles, including the prejudices and judgements of others, which make claiming benefits problematic.
Helping people to secure their benefit entitlements enables them to feel more in control of their lives and take part in their communities and can relieve some of the burden of poverty and/or debt that so often leads to a downward spiral of both mental and physical health. We provide a holistic service, signposting people to other resources in the borough, including health and wellbeing opportunities, education, voluntary work, and access to talking therapies.
We receive referrals from Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs), GP surgeries, job centres, care homes, residential hostels and other voluntary organisations. We also accept self-referrals.
We can help in the following areas:
1. Address and resolve immediate financial distress.
2. Support by helping to improve financial security.
3. Increased Social Inclusion (Inc. access to preventative services).
Hear Us is a mental health user group for the London borough of Croydon. We are a Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisation (DDPO). Our AQS (Advice Quality Standard) accredited Welfare Rights Advice Project (WRAP) is a peer support project supporting Croydon’s mental health service user community to navigate the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) welfare system and other services. The post holder will deliver peer support, which enables, empowers, and provides service users with clear boundaries and does not create dependency upon the service. We want our clients to become self-reliant and be able to maintain their own finances and claims. The post-holder will support our clients to access food banks and mobility schemes.
Tim Oldham
CEO
Orchard House
15a Purley Road
South Croydon
Surrey
CR2 6EZ
Tel: 020 8681 6888
Email: hello@hear-us.org