HEADINGTON BAPTIST CHURCH 

Barton is a beautiful community made up of wonderful people, but it’s one of the 10 most deprived wards in Oxfordshire. There are many short-term, urgent needs to address but we are interested in ....more

Barton is a beautiful community made up of wonderful people, but it’s one of the 10 most deprived wards in Oxfordshire. There are many short-term, urgent needs to address but we are interested in tackling the issues that are harder to fix, but will have the most long-term benefit. In short, we want to play our part in removing the deep-rooted obstacles that stop many people here reaching their potential. Poverty can lead to poor mental health. And poor mental health can also keep people in poverty. People living in the most deprived households are 2-3 times as likely to develop mental health problems as those in the highest. And they’re less likely to have help – counselling is a ‘luxury’ the poor can’t afford. Even when help is not behind a paywall, it’s hard to access – long waiting lists for NHS therapy have gotten longer with COVID. One lady who had been on a waiting list for ‘Talking Space’ for 8 weeks was finally referred to our ‘Hear4You’ listening service. “You have given me hope,” she told us. When lockdown hit, as a frontline service embedded in the local community, we surveyed people in Barton to find out what they felt the biggest needs where. One lady let us know her frustrations with being unable to find a counsellor. Our local GP told us she was desperate to give patients experiencing isolation or poor mental health someone to talk to. So in May 2020 we put a pop-up gazebo outside the local shops to provide a space for people to be listened to, which developed into Hear4You – a 1:1 listening service overseen by a qualified counsellor, providing Barton people with weekly 45 minute sessions for up to 12 weeks. 6 trained volunteers have already supported 20 people, most of whom were prescribed to us from the GP surgery. Our hope now is to expand the service, and to do that we want to make the space more inviting. Barton Community Church already rent space from the Neighbourhood Centre that includes a private room perfect for the Hear4You listening service. But it's not a very inviting space. We're looking for £800 in funding for a renovation project, to provide an inviting, safe and relaxed atmosphere for people to have a listening service. Funds will be spent on materials, with the majority of the work done by volunteers. We expect the Hear4You service to benefit 25 people over the coming 12 months, offering people from a deprived area who experiencing loneliness, isolation and poor mental health the opportunity to improve those outcomes. With full honesty, our impact reporting to date has been affected because our final survey of participants is done on their last session, but with so many clients experiencing chaotic lives, often sessions end prematurely or people miss weeks. So we need to build in a 1,3, 6 and 12 week assessment that captures data along the journey, rather than just a before and after.