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 P proposed 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 dropin 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
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Feb 16, 2007
J G Cederquist + 5
Open Access
