Helping hands
Calm Crafts is our dementia friendly art session which runs every Thursday from 10 to 12. We welcome people experiencing mental health issues, feeling isolated or with caring responsibilities and we provide a safe, quiet space to be creative, express yourself and connect with other people. We’ve had feedback that it’s the only place support workers and carers feel safe to bring their clients, which is huge praise!
Now, we are seeing unprecedented numbers of young people engaging with mental health services, especially since the pandemic, local providers are doing a great job dealing with the load, but we feel there is something wrong with a society that places so much pressure on its young people that they buckle, and so much so that they come to organisations like us. Not expecting we can solve things for them, but because we are open, non-judgemental and we can help people feel reasonably safe.
So, we’ve been doing some thinking about why this is the case and how we can provide some more consistent solutions. CEO Mike Milen says “I can’t help thinking we could do some really useful and interesting work getting teens engaged with something similar. I really worry about the perception that local teens lack drive or ambition, especially girls, but I refuse to accept that they are any less talented in Thorntree than they are elsewhere.” So 2024 will not only see us embark on a journey to deliver our young persons peer supported housing model but also gain OFSTED registration in order to do this.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the current systems for supporting young people transitioning from care and mental health services will be dismantled or radically overhauled at some point and this is our opportunity to show that there are alternatives. Through this new approach we will be able to offer people aged 16 and 17 housing, which is supported by staff who are focussed on their needs, not the organisation. Mike says “we can add choice and value to a service area that is dominated by poor performing and staid alternatives.”
As a community organisation we have to be creative with our thinking, to make big changes with minimal funds, but that’s what helps us strive to be different too. We are focussed on peer driven support where we help people to help themselves. We provide the tools and guidance to find the right path for each individual and then support them through that journey. This is something we apply to all our work, but this particular residential model has benefitted from 50 years of learning within the US and over a decade operating in the UK. It has then been refined based on residents' lived experience and our own organisational learning.
As we get more requests for safe quality homes for families and victims of abuse, we are pushing forward on our work to be a Registered Provider of Social Housing so that alongside various residential and commercial projects, we can create new opportunities and safe spaces from 2024. We will then see how our work providing people with safe spaces and opportunities to express themselves contributes to more cohesive, connected, and confident communities.
Known for its industrial history and capacity for invention and innovation, this is an area with a strong sense of regional identity and pride and a shared sense of ‘place’. Family networks are strong and local community is valued, we are here, a part of the community, with an unshakeable belief in peer driven support as a catalyst for change.