Member Profile: Off Centre
11 November, 2011
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Background
Off Centre supports the mental health and wellbeing needs of young people aged 11-25 in Hackney and surrounding boroughs. Hackney is both a fantastic place to grow up and a very challenging place to grow up, something that’s reflected in the 2,500+ young people Off Centre support each year.
Established in 1983, Off Centre has grown from being a therapeutic counselling service to a multi-disciplinary team that takes a holistic approach to supporting young people coping with traumatic and chaotic early lives. Young people can access a range of services including:
- One-to-one counselling
- Group work
- Drama Therapy
- Art Therapy
Counselling specialism’s include relationship support, sexual violence, aggression, bullying, suicidal ideation, self-harm, loss and bereavement, depression, anxiety and much more. Specialist programmes include work with young men around guns, gangs and knives, substance misuse counselling, teen pregnancy support, sexual health, suicide and self-harm. All Off Centre counsellors are British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP), British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) or British Association of Dramatherapists (BADth) registered.
Young people can self refer and Off Centre also receive referrals from a wide range of other sources including social services, psychiatrists, GP’s, schools, youth offending teams, families and peers.
Off Centre advice information service “Vibes” provides advocacy, casework, referral and signposting with specialist support in:
- Housing and homelessness
- Benefits
Through “The Right Track”, Off Centre psychosocial support project, young people can access a range of social, learning & experiential activities, volunteering opportunities and peer mentoring training. In the last year young people have had the opportunity to take part in rock-climbing, visit the 2012 Olympic site, take music lessons, go sailing and canoeing. Off Centre Peer Mentors not only provide much needed support to young people on a range of different issues, but have been instrumental in deciding how the service and the wider organisation responds quickly and effectively to the changing needs of young people. They told Off Centre, for example, that they need a parent and baby group for new and expectant parents, and they set up Urban Mothers Moving Forwards.
In addition to working from specially adapted premises in central Hackney Off Centre take their services out into the community to reach people where and when they need help. An example is REACH, their highly acclaimed whole school approach to tackling domestic violence and violence in intimate relationships. REACH is now a key part of KS3/4 PSHE Sex and Relationships provision for an increasing number of schools.
What difference do Off Centre services make?
This holistic approach to supporting young people’s needs results in demonstrable improvements in mental wellbeing, reduced prevalence of mental health problems among and improved quality of life for young people experiencing mental health problems. Off Centre know this through their rigorous approach to outcomes measurement as part of their quality assurance framework. They use CORE (Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluations) to measure clinical effectiveness and to benchmark provision year-on-year.
Off Centre young people also tell us what they think:
“Off Centre is ‘it’ believe me!”
"Off Centre was the right place for me. A place where you can go and find hope, help and a very friendly staff team. As a young person if it hadn’t been for Off Centre I wouldn’t be here today. Off Centre has helped me a lot."
I have learnt to look (after) and understand myself, which I’ve never done before. I have learnt to like and look after myself,(my) needs.”
What’s next for Off Centre?
In 2011 Off Centre gained consent from the Charity Commission to change their objects to allow the organisation to work beyond confines of the London Borough of Hackney. Off Centre did this as they recognise that young people’s needs do not stop at the boundaries to the borough and because it will help open up new opportunities to grow and develop as an organisation. Off Centre think their model of holistic support could be replicated across London and beyond, subject to funding. As a first step towards this aim Off Centre said they were "privileged to have been part of a Youth Access led bid to the Home Office Choices grants programme." Their strategy also includes growth across both core services – psychotherapeutic and psychosocial and to the administrative infrastructure that underpins it.
This year they are also undertaking whole team training in mentalisation an evidence-based intervention for young people labelled as “hard-to-reach”. This reinforces their holistic aim providing mental health, advice, and social interventions together under one roof to support very troubled young people, who are not yet ready to access other forms of support. Off Centre's aim is to support their dedicated, brilliant staff team trained in multiple treatment methods supported by close and robust supervisory structures.
How has Youth Access helped?
Youth Access is our “go to” organisation when we need to get up-to-speed with national agenda’s and emerging developments in the fields of youth provision, advice and information. Youth Access provides us with a readily available resource bank and network of other providers we can turn to in times of need. Without Youth Access’s expertise on a diverse range of issues we would find accessing the information we need to do our jobs much more difficult.
