Julian Housing Support

Julian Housing Support
JHS does not own any accommodation itself but has provided housing and support services for people with mental health problems since 1990. By working in partnership with Supporting People, Norfolk Social Services, Norfolk Primary Care Trusts and every major housing provider in the County it has built up a range of housing choices and options for support.

The Charity aims to:

	Enable people with severe and enduring mental health problems to live within the community in accommodation suited to their needs

	Build on peoples existing strengths and skills in order for them to live as independently as they wish

	Improve the quality of peoples lives by focusing on what they feel are their housing and support needs and by accessing appropriate resources to help meet their needs

Annually JHS provides a service to one thousand five hundred people throughout Norfolk, 85 per cent of this service is to individuals within their own homes, accommodation that we help them to find or sustain. JHS works with, but is independent of, statutory services. Half of our funding is from housing (Supporting People) rather than health or social services sources. We have outreach teams throughout Norfolk which accept referrals from continuing support teams and in certain circumstances housing officers.

From the earliest days JHS has attempted to put the service user at the centre of our project. The following is a quote from Steve Morgan, an independent consultant from Practice Based Evidence:

“In an arena of mental health that is dominated by the focus on problems, JHS provides a rare insight into a way of working that highlights, celebrates and works with service users’ personal strengths and aspirations. This uniquely engaging focus has been developed through a strong desire within people working for the organisation, and through access to external practice development resources that specifically promote the ‘strengths’ approach. The positive outlook of staff within Julian Housing Support has enabled them to provide increasingly innovative solutions to individual service user needs based on a range of creative collaborations - with service users themselves, and with other organisations.”

Supported Housing

In addition to outreach support, JHS manages a range of small supported housing schemes. One of these, Bakery Court, opened in Norwich in 1998. It came about as the result of a partnership between JHS and an Alms House charity, Norwich Consolidated Charities. It represents an entirely new concept in supported living for people with complex needs. The twelve residents of Bakery Court each have their own high quality self-contained flat. The support team offer 24 hour support, seven days a week. This scheme has been so successful that a second larger project, Devonshire Place, was built. This is again a partnership between JHS, Cotman Housing Association and the Greater Norwich Housing Partnership. It opened early in 2005.

Resettlement

JHS also provides a service for people who are unsure how to take steps to independent living. HART (Housing Assessment and Resettlement Team) is a partnership between JHS and Norfolk & Waveney Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (Trust secondees form part of the team). Most of this work takes place in our Oak House assessment unit or one of the 14 resettlement flats connected to the project. Residents stay for up to one year before progressing ,in a supported way, to the accommodation of their choice.

Hospital Housing Link Worker

In 1999 a multi agency working party was formed to identify the links between mental ill health / homelessness / accommodation difficulties /psychiatric hospital discharge / delayed discharge and multiple readmissions. A process was developed to promptly identify needs as soon after hospital admission as possible and in March 2000 Julian Housing Support began a pilot scheme funded by CRISIS reach out grant at Northgate Hospital Gt. Yarmouth. CRISIS funding enabled JHS to appoint a Housing Link worker to visit inpatients with identified housing needs. This pilot ran for three years and was independently evaluated in 2002. The evaluation showed that the Link work prevented loss of accommodation, provided clear pathways to housing for those without a home and ensured that users of this service were properly connected to ongoing tenancy support. The CRISIS pilot and subsequent evaluation helped JHS to further develop and refine the process and provided evidence of positive outcomes leading to successful bids for funding from Office ot the Deputy Prime Minister, Homeless Directorate. This funding is now matched by Norfolk Social Services, Norfolk PCTs and District Councils. A service is now provided to every psychiatric acute ward in the County.

Active Outreach

This is another first for Julian Housing. This Active Outreach Team was set up in 1995. It was one of the first teams in the country to work to an ‘assertive outreach’ model of care. What this means is that the team seek to positively engage with people, who because of their severe mental health problems, find it difficult to access services that could be helpful to them.This group is sometimes referred to as being hard to engage or resistant to services. The team currently supports 53 clients offering a range of interventions, focusing on what the client feels will be helpful to sustain themselves in the community. There are seven in the team including a practitioner manager, who specialise in dual diagnosis and provide training.

The teams work is firmly rooted within the philosophy of the assertive outreach model of care, offering flexible, long term support.

The service reflects our belief that whilst people who use our service may have specific needs relating to their mental health,they also share needs that are universally experienced such as:

	Food

	Adequate housing and income

	Safety

	Meaningful relationships

	A sense of purpose and belonging

We aim to offer creative and practical support to meet these needs and help clients achieve their aspirations. As with much of the work of JHS we work to the Strengths Model.

The team members come from a variety of professional backgrounds (mental health nursing and social work, housing, counselling) but are employed on a generic basis. They possess a wide range of skills and interests, which bring a fresh and innovative approach to addressing users needs and wishes, they are independent of statutory services but work closely with Norfolk Mental Health Care Trusts Norwich community teams.

The work of this team was independently evaluated by Roberta Graley-Wetherell and Steve Morgan. This positive evaluation was published by the Sainsbury Centre for mental health.

If you would like to know more about the Active Outreach team or any of Julian Housing Supports services contact:

Tel: 01603 767718
E-mail: info@julianhousing.org