Outreach and community support
We provide an outreach service to clients who are referred to us by healthcare professionals, supporting people to move out of psychiatric care.
We work closely with each client, their key worker, psychiatric nurse or social worker to develop a care management plan to meet that person's needs.
Often, we provide the link between our client and the Community Mental Health Team.
How the service works
A team of support workers runs our outreach service, managed by United Response. They work with local Community Mental Health Teams.
We work with people in their own homes but can support people before their admission to or discharge from hospital.
The services we offer will be agreed with each client's Care Co-ordinator who has case responsibility for each person.
The support services we can offer are practical help, social and emotional help and mental and physical health.
Practical help
Practical help can range from finding accommodation and supporting the person in that accommodation to helping people with personal money management.
Other forms of practical help include helping people with their welfare benefits entitlements or going with someone to recreational and leisure activities as per their care plan.
Social and emotional help
Social and emotional help can range from helping people to establish and sustain social networks to offering emotional support in times of stress.
Other forms of this help could be helping people to communicate with others, for example in a shared house.
Mental and physical health
United Response's support workers do not have responsibility for administering psychiatric medicines, but they will report back to the Care co-ordinator if someone is not complying with their treatment.
They can also help to report any side effects of medication or any change in the client. This can help service users to communicate with mental health professionals. Support workers can also help people to communicate with other professionals about their general needs.