Althea Park, part of the Care UK group, is based in Stroud in Gloucestershire, providing services from four sites, Althea Park House, Ashleigh House, Ellencroft and Newcombe House.

The new website shows detailed information on the services available at Althea Park as well as providing background information on eating disorders and self harm.

Newcombe House is a specialist residential resource specifically designed for young adolescent females who present with self injurious behaviour. In addition to self harm, they may be experiencing associated difficulties such as: an eating disorder, depression, substance misuse, challenging behaviour, family breakdown, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual vulnerability/abuse and other mental health issues.

Click here to visit the Newcombe House website

Over the past two years Rosebank House have been working closely with Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust to implement a Person Centred Planning approach within the unit.

The project kicked off with awareness sessions to gain buy-in to the project from staff, service users and carers/relatives. These sessions generated a great deal of enthusiasm and were followed by intensive training for those staff interested in becoming PCP facilitators. The facilitator training was provided by the PCP Consultant at the Trust who has provided ongoing support and supervision throughout the project. After training the facilitator began to work with service users to produce life plans which were reviewed by the consultant prior to implementation.

Rosebank House was recently invited to celebrate their achievements in implementing Person Centred Planning at a Stakeholder Day organised by the Trust.

Rosebank presented their experiences with a service user, Helen who was one of the first people in Rosebank House to start her Essential Life Plan. Helen wanted to share her life plan with other groups - what she wanted to achieve in the future, her dreams and how she wants to lead her life. Helen's plan also demonstrated how other services and the communities have been involved.

Various organisations as well as Rosebank House presented their experiences and successes in Person Centred Planning and the day provided a good opportunity to network with other services, share good practice and gain inspiration.

Care UK has now fully adopted the principle of Person Centred Planning and is committed to implementing the approach across all its mental health services over the next year.

Up to 12 people will be living at Evergreen Lodge at any one time, along with at least four staff. During their stay at the home, they will receive help with develop basic living skills like shopping and cooking which will help them move on to live independently.

The eligibility criteria for the home will mean clients are Croydon residents, male or female and of a working age i.e. 18 - 65 years old. They need to be recovering from a mental illness but be at the stage where they are ready to move to living more independently. Some clients may have a background of offending but they will be placed in this home because of their mental health needs and the home's ability to meet these needs.

The home is an attractive building with modern facilities providing a sound environment that promoted independent living. It has a well-trained, professional staff dedicated to providing care, support and therapeutic activities to services users, with a strong emphasis on rehabilitation and normalisation.

Please click here for more information on Care UKs mental health services

Martin Davies from Althea Park said, "Stroud is an ideal location as there are few other providers in the area - most eating disorder services are located in cities such as London and Manchester which makes access difficult from the South West, Midlands or Wales.

"The rural setting certainly helps too because there's the best of both worlds in that it's also near to city life with Gloucester and Cheltenham in easy reach."

Ellencroft, Althea's previous adult clinic, will now be revamped and converted into a six-bed unit for young people, building on the success of Althea Park House, an eight-bed unit, also in Stroud.

For more information please contact martinaltheapark @ fsmail.net.

Althea Park website