History of Edinburgh Crisis Centre
In 1995 The Consultation and Advocacy Promotion Service carried out research into a definition of crisis and explored how crisis's can be addressed producing the report 'Research into Mental Health Crisis Services for Lothian' (1995). This involved an in depth consultation with service users, the majority of whom were not involved in the formal user movement. From this it became clear users defined 'a Crisis' as 'an individual experience not necessarily requiring admission to hospital but necessitating an immediate response (not an appointment)'. From this a model for service delivery emerged, for a non-medical crisis centre, an outreach team and a telephone help line available twenty-four hours a day.
A number of years later as part of the Joint Mental Health Plan for Edinburgh, the Strategic Development Group (Mental Health) established a Crisis Services Task Group. This group was tasked to produce the strategic plan for the development of mental health services in Edinburgh and to inform this process commissioned a piece of work titled 'A Needs Assessment and Options Appraisal' from the Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health. This research included evidence of a review of the Psychiatric Emergency Team (PET) based at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, reports from City of Edinburgh Council Mental Health Officer Service. Further it included feedback from users, revisiting the 1995 CAPS research and undertaking a review of carers experiences, as well as a small scale survey of out of hours General Practitioner Services and the views of local service providers and individual professionals. Researchers organised and carried out study visits to Islington Crisis Resolution Service, Mind Crisis Line and Hull Crisis Service as well as looking at national research and the recommendations from the Framework for Mental Health Services (1997) and the Accounts Commission paper 'A Shared Approach' (1999).
Recommendations from the report were for mental health crisis services to provide individual non-medicalised support at an accessible base in the centre of Edinburgh. To provide a staffed help line for service users and carers and to take calls over twenty four hours, seven days a week to assist people find a way forward and enable actions to be agreed that would lead to resolution of the crisis. Further recommendations highlighted the need for the service to work closely and collaboratively with out of hour's services in Edinburgh Emergency Social Work Services, Out of Hours Teams as well as the Psychiatric Emergency Team.
With these recommendations and a commitment to the further development of the crisis service the steering group membership was formalised including Edinburgh Users Forum, supported by Consultation and Advocacy Promotion Services, Edinburgh Carers Council and the project funding bodies the City of Edinburgh Council and NHS Lothian. This group then through a competitive tendering process commissioned Penumbra to provide management expertise in the set up of a Crisis Centre to include Human Resource and Finance department services. The group became formalised as the Edinburgh Crisis Centre Partnership Group and a formal agreement between the partnership members negotiated. The Crisis Centre also attracted funding from the Scottish Executive to pay for a longitudinal evaluation of the Crisis Centre with the aim of informing wider learning throughout Scotland.
The Partnership Group through shared decision making govern the Crisis Centre and has overall ownership of operational policies and procedures reviewing them on a six monthly basis. They are also involved in the recruitment of Crisis Centre staff.
Equalities in accessing the Centres services as well as in the recruitment process has been a priority throughout the Centres planning. Unfortunately meeting physical barriers to accessing the planned building forced the Centre to open on an interim basis, unable at this stage, to provide overnight accommodation. The Partnership Group are working toward addressing this situation and aim to move to a full service as soon as a suitable building is located.
Members of the Partnership Group:
As a result of an unexpected delay and planning issues at the original site the Partnership Group have decided to locate the Crisis Centre in a temporary, building and to phase in the introduction of services that will be available. The first phase involves opening in an accessible office location in central Edinburgh. The help line will be operated with staff available over 24 hours to maintain contact with people facing a crisis and as initially planned, face-to-face support. This will continue to be arranged via the help line but people will be unable to stay overnight, for up to five days as originally planned, until phase two.
The Partnership Group expect it will take a year to eighteen months to identify a suitable long-term building for the Crisis Centre in line with our original plans for a house. When located the second phase will involve transferring Crisis Centre operations to the new location where visitors will be able to rest overnight and communal rooms will be available for peer support group activities. The free phone numbers will remain unchanged.
Downloads
The following reports and documents are available to download in Adobe PDF format: