St Helens Community Support Service

Service Manager: Jackie Carpenter

Head of Regional Operations: Steve Powter

Our Partners in running this service: St Helens Borough Council

Referrals accepted from: Housing associations, voluntary organisations, community mental health teams, GPs and inpatients.

Opening times: Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 4.30pm

About the service

St Helens community support is a free and independent service funded by St Helens Borough Council to provide housing related support to people experiencing severe mental distress. We work in partnership with other local statutory and voluntary services to support individuals to get the help they need.

We offer people support to:

• Manage finances, benefits, budgeting and debt
• Plan ways to main the security and safety of their home
• Manage property repairs
• Support the person with their medication
• Access community services and activities, e.g. local library or gym, places of worship and community groups
• Socialise and try new social activities
• Keep healthy e.g. keep GP appointments, do regular exercise, plan and prepare meals, buy groceries
• Find voluntary or paid work

We also run weekly drop-in sessions which provide refreshments, and activities such as quizzes and bingos, as well as community outings. Our women’s group drop-in runs on Monday mornings and our mixed group drop-in on Wednesday mornings. Individuals are offered peer support from trained volunteers who have personal experiences of mental distress.

Accessing support and making a referral

If you are in need of support, please get in touch with us directly or alternatively a mental health professional e.g. your social worker, community psychiatric nurse or psychiatrist, can make a referral on your behalf.

Once we receive a referral, we will contact you, make an appointment to meet with you and discuss our service and how we might be able to help. If the service is right for you, we will work closely with you to create a support plan, which we will regularly review with you to ensure that we continue to meet your needs.