Link Centres as ‘Community Hubs’

Updates

(02/08/22) Ilfracombe update

Russ Drayton from the Link Centre told One Ilfracombe that they have been recruiting service users to become a part of the Link Centre development meetings. He also said that he’d had interest from a number of organisations who were keen to get involved at the centre and also updated that the drop in service was also being well received now that they’ve restarted and that they are just working on ways that they can communicate better with their service users.

(22/7/22) Current link centre use

Russ had updated via email that the:

  • service is limited to people who access via our DPT Adult assigned social care team, meaning this is quite restricted to our adult services (limited access for OPMH only to those with historic links).
  • By Invite only access to drop in sessions: 2 in Ilfracombe and Barnstaple and 3 sessions in Bideford.
  • In Holsworthy; space used is no longer available, however DCC during the consultation have committed to providing some space for community drop in’s but are seeking wider community engagement to deliver this service.

(July 2022) Co-production awareness

  • Amongst others, Community Developers (Ella, Charmaine and Michelle) and OND (James Lander) joined a ‘co-production awareness’ session from DCC, setup by the Link centre team
  • Next steps are for the Link Centres, CDs and wider VCSE to form coproduction groups to explore how the Link centres could be used as community hubs delivering non-statutory mental health and wellbeing support

(June 2022) Link centres re-opening

  • Jane King (DPT), Sarah Dent and Tim Nand-Lal (DCC) lead the project team working on the Link Centres. Russ Drayton is the overall manager of the service and each centre has its own manager.  
  • There are 3 centres re-opening: Ilfracombe, Barnstaple and Bideford. Holsworthy will have a service but will likely operate from multiple venues. Russ is happy for the community developers joining the workstream – a great opportunity to help lead the future of these link centres. You can contact him on russ.drayton@nhs.net. 
  • Conversation around non-statutory MH provision, within the centres, is just starting. OND, NDVS and TTVS will represent the wider VCSE, along with the One Towns (Community Developers) where there was/is a Link Centre (Holsworthy, Bideford, Ilfracombe and Barnstaple). The CMHT teams are also represented.  See Minutes – Non statutory MH services in North Devon (31.05.22)