The launch of the new service last week

A NEW mental health day centre has opened in Kentish Town which managers say will help cope with the scale of people experiencing mental health problems.

Leon Honeysett, its service manager, said: “The numbers of people with mental problems in Camden are huge. They’re massive, particularly [people] with psychosis. I think it’s probably down to inner city, socio-economic situations.”

He added: “But we also do have good services in Islington and Camden and therefore more people are accessing services. Day services work, I’m a big believer in day services.”

The new day centre – which is an alternative to talking therapy – for adults is based at the Greenwood Centre and is called The Camden Mental Health Day Support Service (CMHDS). It officially launched last Thursday, August 1, after four years of redesigning with service users.

The new service merges existing day centres that were “dotted around” the borough.

This includes the NHS acute service, known as the Jules Thorn, at the St Pancras Hospital – which is being demolished to make way for an eye hospital – and the former Highgate Day Centre, which relocated service users to the Greenwood Centre after it closed to make way for private flats in 2017.

The new day centre has three tiers of support ranging from eight weeks to 18 months and focuses on group work including creative activities and learning coping techniques.

Drew Jensen told of his struggle

Mr Honeysett said: “We’ve merged them all together so the ‘intensive day support’ is now an acute clinical day offer run by nurses, psychologists and therapists, that’s the big change. They can support people who are actively in crisis. We couldn’t do that in the past. Now we can. “I don’t want to say it’s going to replicate what the Jules Thorn was doing because it’s not but it has a lot of the same remit. It’s the same type of programme.”

Drew Jensen, a resident who has used the mental health services at Greenwood, shared his story. He said: “I had undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD. I was watching my friends get on with their lives and jobs, buying houses and cars. My life was getting smaller and smaller. I could do seasonal work but I just couldn’t do that anymore. Life was very much a struggle.

“The services were very sparse during lockdown. I managed to talk myself into being discharged from my primary care team and things went from bad to worse. “I befriended street people and I ended up being in a really compromising cuckooking situation in my flat. I was also answering the phone and subject to scams. Luckily I was able to pull myself together and go to the crisis team.”

He was referred to the Greenwood and said “the rest is history”.

“The staff are amazing and I just want to say thank you for changing my life,” Mr Jensen added.

Cabinet councillor Anna Wright cuts the cake

When the Highgate Day Centre closed down, some service users reported a decline in their mental health.

Councillor Anna Wright said at the launch: “Way back in 2017 when I wasn’t a Camden councillor I was very closely involved in collaborative work with people who were drawing on the care and support from what was then the Highgate Day Centre and Greenwood wasn’t built then.

“That service was undergoing changes and it was a difficult time. The big lesson from that time was if you want to change services and if you want to create services that are really effective in supporting people you have got to work in a really serious and close way with the people who draw on those services.” If you would like a referral to the CMHDS talk to your GP or your mental health worker.