The Wokingham & West Berkshire Mind Crisis House
| Published date | 01 March 2004 |
| Date | 01 March 2004 |
| Pages | 13-16 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200400004 |
| Author | Pam Jenkinson |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
The Wokingham & West Berkshire
Mind Crisis House
Pam Jenkinson
President
Wokingham & West Berkshire Mind
Case Study
erceived at one level, the Wokingham
Mind crisis house is the simplest of projects – both in
conception and in reality. Wokingham & West
Berkshire Mind was formed in July 1988 by a group of
mental health service users and informal carers who
were only too well aware of the local paucity of mental
health services. The idea was to fill this gap with
things that service users and carers actually needed.
Identified as priorities were a drop-in centre, a
befriending scheme and crisis beds. The service users
had been on the receiving end of psychiatric
oppression and the informal carers had had their needs
ignored by mental health professionals. We therefore
decided from the beginning that professionals would
be banned. Thus we ensured that we were and always
would be a user-run organisation. We sought affiliation
to MIND because their stated aims and values were
the same as ours and because we valued membership
of the national mental health movement.
Our first year’s existence was devoted entirely to
the political and the philosophical. We worked out
what we were and what we were not before we put
any services in place and a lot of our subsequent
success is due to the clarity of vision established in
those early days. A year later in June 1989 we
established a weekly drop-in centre in the heart of the
Wokingham community. We soon had a regular
attendance of 30 mental health service users and
carers from whom a successful befriending scheme
was derived. The hall cost £5 per morning. We passed
the plate round to raise this and also started our own
modest fundraising events.
We heard through rumours on the grapevine that a
house, Station House in Wokingham, was going to be
made available to us. This house had been the
headquarters of the local mental health team, which
was moving to Wokingham Hospital. However, no
meeting was arranged with us to discuss on what basis
we were to take possession of the house. First, the
Pproposed date for moving was Christmas 1989. We
were, of course, not ready, but we needn’t have
worried. The grinding of bureaucracy was predictably
slow, and we eventually got the keys to Station House
at Easter 1991.
I have no doubt that social services had an agenda
for our development once we moved into Station
House, but it was never discussed with us. At our own
monthly committee meetings we had already decided
to set up Station House as a crisis house as soon as we
moved in. We were ready now, having established a
flourishing drop-in and befriending scheme from
whom crisis volunteers could be drawn. The only
discussion about our occupation of Station House took
place with the property department of the now
defunct Berkshire County Council. They prepared a
rent-free lease on two conditions. First, that we should
allow a small group of service users who had attended
social services groups to continue coming to our drop-
in and, second, that we should allow the Wokingham
Volunteer Centre to continue using the premises until
they found an alternative venue.
Moving into Station House on Tuesday 2 April
1991, we cleaned, decorated and furnished it and
immediately opened our first, and at that time, only,
crisis sanctuary. A further crisis sanctuary was set up
when the Volunteer Centre moved out in April 1993, a
third in October 2000, and a fourth (short-term crisis
bed) in April 2003. It is a service that has evolved
gradually with us acquiring crisis skills and gaining
confidence as we go along. The concept is simple:
‘home-spun, as mother made it’.
You have a little old house in the heart of the
community opposite Wokingham railway station. It is
within minutes’ walk of all essential services – doctors’
surgeries, hospital, chemists, shops, job centre,
housing department, and statutory mental health
services. Inside, the furnishings (provided free of
charge by the local community) are cosy and
homelike. The house consists of four bedrooms with
en-suites, two kitchens (one for the drop-in centre and
The Mental Health Review Volume 9 Issue 1 March 2004 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2004 13
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