Recognising Potential, Encouraging Independence, Achieving Self-Worth

Want to help?

We are very grateful for the offers of help, practical, financial and prayerful, that we have received over the years. If you feel able to give please contact us

Helping Crossways Financially

Crossways receives most of its income from fees for residents we care and support. However  this only covers the basic running costs of the charity and any new  project we wish to develop has to be funded from money kindly given to us by friends of Crossways as we don’t receive regular top-ups from government or local authorities. If you would like to give to Crossways either as a one-off gift or on a regular basis please download a donation form.

Annual Service of Thanksgiving Saturday 5th October 2013 at 2.30pm at St John’s

Carol Service Monday 2nd December 2013 (7.00pm) at TWCF Church

Spring Fayre (Coffee Morning) Saturday XX XXXXX 2014 at St John’s Church

Map of Tunbridge Wells Christian Fellowship TWCF - Map of St John’s Church

News

Wednesday 5th September. Record breaking amount (by 70 pence!) of £57.10  raised from our second Crossways Enterprise book sale. Again the good weather helped to make it a good day. We’re grateful again for the kind donations, generous support from buyers and tireless help from the various residents who helped out.

One of our Supported Accommodation residents tells how his life has improved by getting involved with work: The following is from ThisIsKent website

Jimmy Sedden, 54, Culverden Park Road, Tunbridge Wells: "I became  unwell when I was in Liverpool. I came to Tunbridge Wells to seek help  and start a new life. My life a few years ago was worry and confusion. I was referred to Shaw Trust to help me get back to work. I did a  three-month unpaid trial at B&Q and then got a 12-month paid  contract. B&Q were very happy to keep me on, which I think is great. I was a bit shy with customers when I first started but now I can do my job the way it should be done. My life has turned out fantastically for me. I feel like a new man"

Wednesday 16th May 2012. Steve presented a MHA seminar to about 20 of the volunteers and full-time staff of Home Start (South West Kent). A registered charity that provides volunteers who visit families in the families’ own homes offering informal and friendly and confidential support. Given how important early involvement is for children, supporting and helping parents to cope, is a great ambition.

Wednesday 18th April 2012, Crossways Community hosted its first Mental Health Conference at Burrswood. Its aim was to support clergy/ministers/pastors and other leaders in the local churches cope with stress and have a better understanding of their own and others mental health. We’re grateful for the various contributions including:

Dr Gareth Tuckwell, Burrswood’s CEO who introduced the day;

Dr Paul Worthley, Seniour Physican at Burrswood who talked about the physical aspects of stress;

Louise Jessop, a trained physiotherapist, Tesco’s Checkout Champion and who is also recovering from her own long-term mental ill-health shared her own life’s journey and her beautiful collection of tapestries;

Crossways’ input came in the form of a presentation from John Neel about perception, making a difference and some of the differences between different types of mental illness and Steve Howcroft who led the last training session on how labelling affects people, some background theories as to how we develop our personalities and relate to people and a demonstration on what it’s like to hear voices. 

Saturday 14th April 2012, Steve presented his third annual mental health awareness seminar to the Tunbridge Wells Street Pastors & prayer supporters. With over 40 people taking it in turns to go out each Friday night on and a similar number of supporting them in prayer, they provide an invaluable help to the marginalised in the town. 

8th November 2011 Steve had the privilege of giving a mental health awareness seminar to 6 Kent volunteers of the Civil Service Benevolent Fund. The volunteers are the people who meet potential beneficiaries some of whom may have mental health issues. The Fund which provides support for current and ex-civil servants is celebrating its 125th year. One of the initiatives they are developing is Health on your Mind which is leading from the Governments “No health without mental health” strategy.

2nd November 2011 Crossways welcomed The Right Revd James Langstaff, Bishop of Rochester. Bishop James. To the delight of several residents he visited the care home and was shown round the supported accommodation by one of the residents. We later talked about the challenges we faced in our work Bishop James shared his concern for social housing and justice for vulnerable adults. We also discussed how the church and Christian organisations like Crossways Community could work together. We expressed our gratitude at the ongoing generosity; in prayer, practically and financially that we have received over the years from the local churches and community.

In the picture: (L-R) Mrs Ginny Swaffer (Supported Accommodation Manager), Mrs Jacky Taylor (Care Home Manager), The Right Revd. James Langstaff, Bishop of Rochester, Mr John Neel (CEO), Mrs Stefanie Tegelaars (Chairwoman of Directors) & Mr Steve Howcroft (Administrator and Mental Health Awareness Trainer/Co-ordinator).

1st November 2011 As part of our licensing of Culverdale, our Supported Accommodation (Hostel), we have 5 yearly visits by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council Environmental Health Officers as part of the HMO (Houses of Multiple Occupation) legislation. Thanks to a concerted effort from the staff and admin department to maintain the safety of the building, the inspection went without any problems.

Saturday 8th October - Crossways Thanksgiving Service.

We’re grateful to the Rev Howard Flint, vicar of Holy Trinity with Christ Church, Tunbridge Wells for speaking at our service with a message inspired by his recent visit to Ely Cathedral. Sarah Weller led the Crossways’ Choir with Lord, I lift my hands to you in four-part harmony and Ian Lees gave a brief summary of his life and experience of his time at Crossways.

World Mental Health Day  10th October 2011

World Mental Health Day raises public awareness about mental  health issues. The day promotes open discussion of mental disorders, and investments in prevention, promotion and treatment services. The  treatment gap for mental, neurological and substance use disorders is  formidable especially in poor resource countries.

This year the theme is "Investing in mental health". Financial and human resources allocated for mental health are inadequate  especially in low resource countries. The majority of low- and  middle-income countries spend less than 2% of their health budget on  mental health.

Many countries have less than one mental health specialist per one million population. Even a considerable part of the limited  resources is spent on large mental hospitals and not for services  delivered through community and primary health care.

We need to increase investment for mental health and to shift  the available resources towards more effective and more humanitarian forms of services

Investing in mental health brochure 2011

mhGAP Intervention Guide

10 facts about mental health

14th September 2011 Carole Wicks undertakes the first of two part training session for some of the the Tonbridge Deanery Pastoral Assistants. Mental Health was one of the common themes that they thought about as a group that was necessary to have more understanding on. We’re hoping to offer this to the other two Rochester Archdeaconaries.

1st September 2011 ‘Dig For Victory’. Staff of Admin and the Care Home with some of the residents get involved in weeding and generally improving the look of the front and rear gardens at the care home. We are very fortunate that all our houses have excellent gardens which are greatly appreciated by staff, residents and visitors alike.

4th August 2011 After a meeting with one of the Monitoring and Review Officers for Ken County Council Supporting People unit, we were pleased to hear that we have been awarded “A” Grade Status for Culverdale, our Supported Accommodation unit. This is a culmination of a great deal of work to improve standards of support and procedures by the Culverdale and admin staff. Thanks too for the advice over the years from Kent Supporting People who have passed on their wisdom in helping us to improve standards.

25th September 2010. The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Pastor Cliff Allen and Stefanie Tegelaars, Chair of Trustees of Crossways Community officially opened the new administration unit. We’re grateful to Dr Clark and Mr Allen for their kind words of support. We’re also thankful for the many guests from the local churches and community, who also came and braved the chilly late September morning, for their invaluable support over the years. 

April 2010

We’re pleased to welcome Carole Wicks as our Schools and Community Mental Health Trainer. Time to change is an amalgamation of 35 projects including Mind and Rethink around changing the public’s behaviour regarding mental health. More details about them are available here. More information about Mental Health Awareness. More information about Crossways’ own mental health awareness course that we’re slowly rolling out.

April 2010 After a recent visit by our CQC inspector, it has been confirmed that our care home has retained its *** (Excellent) status.

Information

Past Newsletters:

Crossways produces a twice-yearly newsletter which we send to the Friends of Crossways and other supporters. Some of these aren’t able to be reduced in size to be downloaded from our website but past ones are available below.

If you receive a printed copy and would rather read it online, please drop us an e-mail with your name and address and we can take you off the mailing list. We still value your support, but it helps a little with the printing costs.

Autumn 2009    Spring 2010   Spring 2011 (large file 14mb)  Autumn 2011  (1.6mb pdf file)  Spring 2012