Mind in Camden is an independent registered charity (No. 292180), established in 1985, and a company limited by guarantee (Reg. No. 1911178).
We are affliliated with National Mind.
We provide:
- Phoenix: an innovative Wellbeing & Mental Health Recovery Day Service providing a range of co-produced support spaces, dedicated personal support, peer support groups and workshops
- Free Peer Support Groups: where people come together to share experiences and support one another.
- Healthy Minds Community Programme: supports local people to reconnect with their interests and goals by engaging in activities and courses and building positive connections with the local community
- Voice Collective: a London-wide capacity-building project that provides information and support for children and young people who hear voices, see visions or have other unusual experiences
- We are the lead organisation in the London Hearing Voices Network, which supports 42 hearing voices peer support groups across the capital
- Community Development: supports and develops mental health projects with BAME community groups and organisations to promote good mental health and wellbeing across communities.
Past projects include:
- Voices Unlocked: supports people who hear voices in prisons, secure units and Immigration Removal Centres. The service also supports Women's Voices Unlocked which focuses on women who hear voices in these environments
- Social Prescribing Services: 1-1 support with a key worker helping Camden residents set and achieve goals and make contact with local resources and organisations offering support.
We provide services to over 1000 people with mental health needs each year. Our annual turnover is in the region of £1,000,000 per annum. We employ 20 staff members and are supported by about 100 volunteers at any one time.
Values
Our core values around mental health are:
- We see mental health as a continuum we are all at different points on at different times in our lives – there is no ‘us’ (= well) and ‘them’ (= ill).
- We see experiences such as hearing voices, seeing visions, having unusual beliefs and experiencing anxiety, hopelessness or extremes of mood as responses to real events, feelings and cultural influences that people can identify in their own lives – rather than as delusions, hallucinations or symptoms of a bio-medical ‘disorder’.
- We recognise that many people who experience voices, visions and who have other unusual experiences and/or beliefs lead happy and fulfilled lives, and that, in some cultures, these experiences are accepted as normal.
To find out more, please see our Vision, Values and Mission page.
Working in partnership to effect change & deliver services
Mind in Camden has a track record of over 30 years of successfully delivering community mental health services. We have extensive experience in running development projects in partnership with other organisations:
- Our Hearing Voices projects have worked with over 150 voluntary and statutory organisations across London and nationally including: Kids Company, Childline, The National Paranoia Network, National Hearing Voices Network, Local Mind Associations, National Mind, CAMHS and EIP Teams, Inpatient Units, Social Services, Schools, Mental Health Inreach Teams in Pentonville, Holloway, Brixton, Bronzefield, Wormwood Scrubs and a range of homelessness charities.
- The Phoenix Wellbeing & Recovery Service is delivered in partnership with a diverse range of community groups and individuals as volunteers and independent trainers from many different backgrounds.
We currently work with the following organisations as formal delivery partners:
- The Anna Freud Centre (Contracted to undertake an evaluation of Voice Collective, our children and young people’s project)
- The Paranoia Network (A national organisation of trainers and consultants with lived experience of paranoia, contracted to provide training and consultancy for our London Paranoia Groups Project)
- Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust (as co-facilitators of their 'Interesting Minds' peer support group for young voice hearers)
- South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (as co-facilitators of their Voice Collective peer support groups for young voice hearers)
- HMP Holloway, HMP Pentonville, HMP Wandsworth & HMP Highdown (supporting their Hearing Voices Peer Support Groups).
We have also undertaken work as a subcontracted organisation for:
- Intervoice (the International Hearing Voices Network)
- The English National Hearing Voices Network
- In 2012 we provided a staff training element to a successful consortium tender for Mental Health Day services in Cambridgeshire to enable the development of peer support and co-production model of day services.
To find out more about our training and consultancy opportunities, please click here.
