The Joint Homelessness Team is a multi-disciplinary community mental health service that works with people who sleep rough in Westminster and who have a mental illness.
Service users referred to the team will usually have had a history of admissions to hospital, possibly detained under the Mental Health Act and may have arrived from other countries or elsewhere in the UK. Service users have often encountered problems with medication treatments.
The aims of this service are to:
- Work creatively to improve engagement
- Reduce relapse by working collaboratively with service users to provide service-user-focused packages of care
- Reduce likelihood and duration of admission to hospital
- Improve social functioning
- Promote stability in the lives of service users and their families
- Work in an integrated manner with other statutory and non-statutory local services
The Joint Assessment Service (JAS), part of the team, is commissioned by Housing Options Service in Westminster to help people who are under Housing legislation who present as homeless, and appear to be vulnerable in terms of their mental health.
Service users of JAS may have been engaged with other mental health services in the past, but will have disengaged at the time of their referral, possibly as a result of homelessness.
JAS will carry out a comprehensive assessment, the result of which will be a recommendation as to whether or not the service user meets the vulnerability threshold.
The team supports anyone over 18 who is sleeping rough in Westminster, who has a mental illness and is unwilling or unable to access mainstream mental health services.
The service is available to anyone aged 18 or over who has presented as homeless at Westminster Housing Options Service, and appears to be vulnerable within the meaning of housing legislation as a result of their mental health.
Service users will already be known to specialist mental health services who refer directly to community outreach teams. Mental health homelessness teams receive referrals from a range of sources working within street homelessness.
The JHT work with people who are unwilling or unable to access mainstream services therefore we would not normally take self-referrals.
Known patients would normally be seen by appointment but a duty worker is usually available to see someone if they turned up without an appointment.
We see most of our referrals via regular outreach sessions either at day centres or on the street.
JAS referrals are made exclusively via Housing Options by their caseworkers. The decision to refer is based upon the information provided by the homeless applicant.
Service users referred are assessed by the JAS worker at Housing Options in Westminster.
Joint Homelessness Team – The service operates usual office hours from 9:00-17:00, Monday to Friday, with a duty worker usually available during these hours. We also work regular early and late shifts on the streets in order to see people at their sleep site.
Joint Assessment Service operates from 9:00-17:00, Monday and Friday.
Bus: 148, 185, 2, 29, 36, 38, 390, W7
Train: Overground, Southeastern, Southern
Tube: Central, District, Jubilee and Northern lines
If you need help in a crisis, please do the following
- Contact the CNWL service looking after you during their office hours
- If the crisis is during when your service is closed, there are alternative options provided by the NHS found on this page.
- If you are not already being looked after by CNWL or elsewhere within the NHS, see your GP during normal working hours as they can then refer you to a local service.
Find your closest GP on NHS Choices.