Our Partners

We deliver the Firm Foundations service in partnership with Actes, the local social enterprise charity. 

By working collaboratively and pooling our network of contacts we have been able to identify and reach those most in need of support to alleviate hardship.

Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund we've helped people facing financial hardship to overcome immediate difficulties and to prepare for future opportunities and challenges. 

We've partnered with local ARC, Stockton Arts Centre, to develop and deliver Arts & Minds, a creative and social support group. ARC is a charity that uses arts and cultural activity to support our local community and its vision aligns with our mission and work perfectly.

Working collaboratively with ARC, we've been able to blend their expertise of the arts with our knowledge of wellbeing and mental health, to create a unique programme that will connect local people across Teesside and teach new skills in a social setting. 

For both us and ARC it's a great way to showcase our work while highlighting the issue that good mental health can be supported in non clinical and traditional settings.

As commissioned by the Office of the Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner, we provide Appropriate Adult Volunteers to Cleveland Police on a 24/7 basis.

Police custody processing can be distressing, especially for a person who is vulnerable. If a person is deemed vulnerable, the police will request an independent third party attends to support their welfare. 

Our Appropriate Adults safeguard the interests, rights, entitlements and welfare of vulnerable adults who are suspected of a criminal offence, by ensuring that they are treated in a fair and just manner and are able to participate effectively in the custody process.

As part of the Appropriate Adult service we provide to Cleveland Police, we ensure there is at least one volunteer available per shift who can attend custody to

• support, advise and assist the service user when they are given or asked to provide information or participate in any procedure

• observe whether the police are acting properly and fairly to respect the service user’s rights and entitlements

• assist the service user to communicate with the police whilst respecting their right to say nothing unless they want to, as set out in the terms of the caution

• help the service user to understand their rights and ensure that those rights are protected and respected

In the last year alone, our Appropriate Adult volunteers have dedicated 6,776 hours to support Cleveland Police and vulnerable people in police custody. 

Working in partnership with Alliance Psychological Services we were commissioned by the NHS to deliver psychological therapies and wellbeing services for people across Teesside. 

Since the partnership was formed in 2020 we've supported over 15,000 local people and demand for our support has sadly never been greater.

Our experienced team provides counselling and talking therapies but also works with those who have long term health conditions, those who need outreach and recovery support or those who need more general emotional and wellbeing help such as employment support.

Voluntary and community sector providers have formed a partnership to create the South Tees Mental Health Support Team. 

The partnership members include The Link, Middlesbrough and Stockton Mind, The Junction, A Time 4 you, ABC, Changing Futures North East, and Redcar and Cleveland Mind.

Mental Health Support Teams work in schools across South Tees to deliver three core functions:

• Support senior mental health leads in educational settings to develop and introduce their whole school or whole college approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing

• Deliver evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health and emotional wellbeing needs

• Provide timely advice to staff and liaise with external specialist services so that children and young people can get the right support and remain in education

We have been working in partnership with Nur Fitness, an award winning community organisation, to shape and deliver our community outreach programme.

It works to help women become healthier, both physically and mentally and specialises in working with the local BME community. When we began to assess and address our activity with the many diverse communities on our doorstep, we reached out to the team at Nur Fitness to help us identify and connect with local people so we could begin to understand their needs and how we could best support them in a culturally appropriate way.

While the partnership is in its infancy, we're already making great progress and are learning so much from the team. This type of collaboration is essential and without its support we wouldn't be able to develop our offering in the way we are.

We work with Primary Care Networks across South Tees, to encourage professionals to identify Carers and support them in their caring role.

Our dedicated Primary Care Link Workers work alongside Primary Care services to meet the aims of the NHS long term plan to grant Carers greater recognition and support, so that their own health and wellbeing needs are addressed. It's a partnership that's making a real difference and that's mutually beneficial. We can support and share our knowledge with PCN workers and they in turn can identify individuals who need our help. Ultimately, the partnership enables more Carers to be seen, heard and helped, which is vital.

We work with primary care services to

• identify Carers at the first point of contact

• raise awareness of the We Care You Care carers support platform

• provide information on commissioned services or community-based services for support

• signpost staff to relevant Carers awareness training

• signpost Carers to relevant services for support

• develop Primary Care Carers Champions

The benefits of our support

We can support practices to become Carer friendly by using a quality marker assessment and offering support and guidance to achieve a Carers friendly status.

Quality markers include:

• identification and registration of Carers - how does the practice proactively identify Carers?

• holistic support - how does the practice use its Carers Register to support Carer health and wellbeing?

• in practice support - how does the practice understand and promote the needs of Carers within the practice?

• appointments and access - how does the practice make it easier to access services?

• information, involvement and communication - how does the practice inform, involve and communicate with Carers?

• awareness and culture - how does the practice promote a Carer friendly culture?

If you're a PCN and would like to find out more then you can call our team on 01642 257020.

Social prescribing has become a cornerstone of the offering from GP surgeries across the UK. Here in Teesside, we were commissioned by the NHS to work in close partnership with four Primary Care Networks across the Tees Valley region to develop and deliver a service that would meet local needs.

We currently provide social prescribing support to 24 GP surgeries in the following PCNs:

• BYTES
• Central
• Greater and 
• Holgate 

Aside from the overarching partnership agreement, we're very much part of each GP practice we support. Our link workers are based in surgeries and we've become an extension of the practice team which is testament to the foundation of the partnership and the growing demand for the social prescribing support. 

Teesside University is a central part of the local landscape and our work with them has spanned many projects from research and evaluation to practical service delivery. Working collaboratively with the University has a significance beyond being able to reach out to and connect with the student population. It enables us to truly  understand the needs of our student community and also of the professionals working with them to develop strategies and programmes to meet those needs.

Most recently, we partnered with the university to deliver the Mentally Healthy Universities Programme, a two year pilot supported by Goldman Sachs Gives.

The programme ran from September 2019 to August 2021 in just nine universities across England and it tested a whole-university approach focused on preventative interventions.

Teesside students were encouraged to participate in sessions on:

• wellbeing essentials
• managing mental health at university
• transitioning into the workplace

We'll be taking forward the learning and resources created in the programme as part of our strategic work with young people and hope to continue working with the University on future projects.