The Geoff Ashcroft Community - mental health support in the East End

Karen Stallard outlines the journey from big dream to practical reality and the challenges of finding and keeping volunteers who can work with the community's target group.

The Geoff Ashcroft Community aims to promote mental health well-being through the creation of an intentional, non-residential community deliberately set up to nurture a sense of belonging and to which people can commit themselves. 

It is named in memory of a 26-year-old man who took his own life in June 2005 having failed to find the necessary support to survive either within the mental health service or the local community. Our aim is to help people who are feeling isolated and unsupported or experiencing mental and emotional distress to build relationships, get involved in activities and find a community which can help their mental health well-being.

In the beginning…

A small church plant in the East End of London found itself struggling to care for the few people who belonged to the church. Resources and safe spaces were limited where people could just meet and spend time together. The church also recognised from its involvement at the local mental health unit that there was a gap in support for people who were struggling to live in the community with various forms of mental distress. They decided that there was a need for a ‘half way’ house, a place where people could come and feel at home, receive support and be a support to others.

The church recognised from its involvement with the local mental health unit that there was a gap in support for people who were struggling to live in the community with various forms of mental distress. They decided there was a need for a ‘half way’ house.

Our first step was to set up a working party of four people who explored the potential of the Geoff Ashcroft Community by visiting other projects and enquiring about charitable status. We dreamed big dreams and tried to get our thoughts down on paper.

We then, with a small amount of funding from a church organisation, set ourselves up as a charity. We worked on our Articles of Memorandum and started to draw up a working business plan. In partnering with another urban charity we were able to apply for a Tearfund grant which enabled us to clarify our vision and values with a consultant and also provided us with a loan for a fundraiser.

Our working party turned into a Board of Directors for the new charity and together we worked on a more realistic three year business plan. Alongside this we set up a craft group which became the first of our community activities.

In our first year of being an official charity we managed to secure a one-off start-up grant from a trust through our fundraisers. We were therefore able to employ a Community Development Manager in our second year of running who could continue to develop the vision and build the structures needed to create more activities and build the community.

Initially we started by trying to identify the right building for the project but it soon became clear that the funding needed was totally unrealistic for us to raise at such an early stage. We needed to quickly abandon thoughts of raising money for nice big premises and work towards building the project for a while without a permanent base. As we did this many more options for development opened for us. It became clear that we needed to get activities up and running and prove the service worthwhile before we could raise funds for a permanent base for the community. Once a temporary base was established we could then develop things at a slower, more realistic pace allowing things to evolve in a much more organic way.

It became clear that we needed to get activities up and running and prove the service worthwhile before we could raise funds for a permanent base. Once a temporary base was established we could then develop things at a slower, more realistic pace.

Up and running at last!

At the beginning the project was solely reliant on volunteers. Initially the premises used were a volunteer’s home and then we had the offer to use a local church hall. Money was raised to refurbish the kitchen in the church hall and so in exchange for doing up the kitchen we were allowed to use the hall rent free. Individuals gave considerable time to establishing the first few community activities. We received some generous donations and also had a couple of people raise money through sponsorship. This enabled us to set up an office base in the hall and provide the resources needed to establish a working base for the community. We also received several other small grants for different groups which helped provide equipment, training and supervision.

Now we have one employed member of staff (Community Development Manager) and three days of community activities happening in the same church hall. The number of people attending the activities is still small and there is still room to grow more activities within our temporary accommodation, but the Community Development Manager is working steadily on all the policies needed to grow the community safely. We have a small Board of Directors and are gradually getting the organisational aspect of the community, including management, clarified and in good working order. We now have a strong volunteers’ policy in place, assessment processes and risk assessments which we are beginning to implement. In order to develop further we have identified the need for another paid post and have recently recruited a fundraiser to fundraise for this post. Within the small group who regularly attend the Geoff Ashcroft Community there is a growing sense of community, we feel that we are beginning to create the environment in which community can positively develop, but there is a long way to go before we achieve the original vision. We are about to write a new business plan which should hopefully see us through the next stage of development.

The main challenges

The main organisational challenge has been being able to move from being a dream to a reality, from being driven rather messily forward by one or two people to being driven more strategically by a board and a member of staff who all take ownership and responsibility for the project.

The main community challenge has been (and will probably continue to be) how to manage people within the community, how to keep them feeling a part of things, how to support them and enable them to contribute and grow. Dealing with conflict and difficulties with behaviour within the community setting will constantly continue to be a challenge.

The main resource challenge has been a lack of able people to help run activities and just model community to people. We have learnt that we can only grow within the available capacity of our volunteers and we need to recruit, train and support more volunteers before we can expect more people to join the community.

Our target group is those people within our communities who may feel lonely and alone, who feel unsafe, are unsupported and who do not engage with other services. Many will have a feeling that they are not coping with the pressures of daily life. While GAC works with an awareness of the depth of trauma and damage inherent in this group we recognise that creating community, trusting others and developing relationships is a real struggle for many of them. We firmly believe, however, that they still deserve to have these experiences. This presents us with a real challenge of how to recruit volunteers and staff who can connect with our target group and put the time and energy into building a safe place for people to come to and begin to experience community.

A real challenge is to recruit volunteers and staff who can connect with our target group and put the time and energy into building a safe place for people to come to and begin to experience community.

We have also learnt that it is not just the recruiting of these volunteers, but it is also how we retain them; they will need good support to be able to do their jobs well and we need to ensure they are adequately provided for.

Key help and advice along the way

Drawing Andrew Bulmer in as a consultant from time to time has been essential in the development of our board, management structures and prioritising our work. Our relationship with several different churches and charities has opened doors and provided us with expertise, premises, funding and volunteers, without which we could not have survived. Other external organisations have been essential such as ELBA for finding us appropriately skilled volunteers to do tasks we are ill-equipped to do ourselves. Early support from Christian organisations like the Baptist Union and Urban Expression provided essential encouragement and theological reflection to motivate and inspire us in our plans.

Top tips for others

• Let things develop slowly and safely.
• Let go quickly of things which feel draining and hard work, keep focusing where the energy is and do not wear yourself out in the process of getting a project off the ground.
• Celebrate the small signs of your vision becoming a reality, dwell on them, talk about them and encourage others with them.

Karen Stallard, leader, Geoff Ashcroft Community, June 2009.

For more information on the GAC email lois@thegeoffashcroftcommunity.org.uk

Some years ago, Karen Stallard shared some thoughts on church and community and the picture of church painted by Jesus in Luke’s gospel, you can read her article on the Tearfund website