North Tyneside Safe Haven Funding Brief
Overview
Capital Funding has become available in North Tyneside through NHSE/I to develop a Crisis Café model. In North Tyneside, we will be using the term Safe Haven.
The Safe Haven Task & Finish Group are looking for expressions of interest from VCSE organisations who have their own building and would be interested in and able to use capital funding available to develop a space for an out of hours service for people who are experiencing poor mental health.
Safe Haven
The Safe Haven will support people who feel that their needs could escalate to a crisis point.
The purpose of the Safe Haven will be to offer immediate support at an appropriate level to quickly stabilise and support an individual’s management of their mental health, reducing the potential for requiring hospital admission working as part of the collaborative team across North Tyneside.
The Safe Haven will be open seven days per week on an evening between the hours of 5pm -1am including bank holidays and will offer people aged 18 +, a safe, calm and comfortable place to go, to receive support when they are in distress.
Many Safe Haven offers are based in community venues, due to their accessibility and the opportunity to link people into other offers to support their health, wellbeing and enable them to feel more connected to their community.
The Safe Haven will also be a space for people to access information and support around crisis prevention, as well as signposting them to, facilitating access to and hosting other relevant and appropriate community mental health services, agencies and activities.
In North Tyneside, a chosen mental health provider will support and staff the Safe Haven.
This provider will have staff who have mental health first aid training, whilst also being linked to local crisis and crisis resolution home treatment teams, so that Safe Haven staff can access a specialist response if needed.
The delivery model and process of how people would access the Safe Haven offer is currently being developed, as different models have different processes.
If you are the provider involved the Safe Haven Task & Finish Group would want you to be involved in the development of the model.
Funding Streams
Capital Funding
£300,000 is available from NHSE/I.
This funding is for capital use only and covers building work and the purchase of equipment.
This funding may be utilised over more than one site across North Tyneside depending on expressions of interest.
Revenue funding
Revenue funding is available through NHS NENC ICB North Tyneside Place; this funding can be used for utility bills to keep the building open out of hours.
Interested organisations are required to cost out how much this would be for a 12-month period initially.
The Safe Haven Space
The vision for the Safe Haven building is that it would have:
- 1 main room large enough for a comfortable seating area
- 2 rooms with windows into the main space
- The 2 rooms would allow staff to have 1:1 and phone calls privately whilst being able to monitor the main area
- Space/area to make refreshments
- A dedicated entrance
- Fire exit
- The building would need to be accessible
- The building would need to be risk assessed for staff and client safety
- Parking onsite or street
- Good public transport links
This is a minimum specification that would be required.
Some of these requirements can be developed with the capital funding available.
What people want – Experts by Experience Insights
The co-production team at Healthwatch North Tyneside were asked to gather the views of local people about creating mental health Safe Haven facilities in North Tyneside.
They have spoken to 103 people. This includes running 4 focus group sessions, individual interviews and responses to a survey that is available online and in paper. This engagement work is ongoing.
This report presents the views gathered so far from people who use, or have used services over the last 2 years, or are a carer for an adult who accesses mental health services in North Tyneside. Throughout our discussions and free text within our survey, common themes were cited by adult members of the public within the North Tyneside region.
Please see the full Insights document attached to this email.
Timeline – build and delivery
Once the capital grant is received, the Safe Haven Task & Finish Group would like work on the building to start as soon as possible. Capital Funding from NHSE/I would be available immediately.
The aim would be for the Safe Haven service to start in early 2023.
Expression of Interest
The Safe Haven Task & Finish Group would like organisations to make an expression of interest for the capital funding by Monday 21st November at 5pm.
Please complete the form below:
Safe Haven North Tyneside Expression of Interest
Information Session
An information session about the Safe Haven funding will take place on Friday 25th November 1-2.30pm at VODA. This session will give you an opportunity to speak to members of The Safe Haven Task & Finish Group ask any further questions you may have and gain a broader understanding of the model.
Please register your attendance at the session via the link below:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/safe-haven-funding-information-session-tickets-466236264217
Process for decision-making
Following information session and when expressions of interest have been considered, visits will be arranged to your venue to assess suitability.
Final funding decisions will then be made by the Safe Haven task and finish group.