About Take Off

Our Mission

Our mission is to support people with mental health problems to improve their well-being and live happier and healthier lives. We have grown to serve the community of East Kent, including Canterbury, Ashford, Faversham, Dover, Thanet and Folkestone.

Most of our services take the form of self-help groups, which are either “talking” or “doing” focused.

3 Principles of Take Off

100% Service User Led

Everyone who wants to be paid is paid

Designed, developed and delivered by service users, for service users

Take Off provides ready-made social networks and also provide other peer support services as needed. When a need is identified, we will endeavour to design, develop and deliver a service to fill that void. We have a large group of sessional workers spread across East Kent. We believe peer support is a significant part of our recovery process and therefore has an economic value.

Welcoming ages 16+

100%

Recommend to family or friends

413

Groups led in

2023 to 2024

183

People supported each month

We're unique

Out-of-hours groups

A number of our groups are in the evenings or at the weekends when most other services and support is unavailable.

What is a peer?

We're all peers at Take Off, and have experience living with a wide range of mental health problems diagnoses.

Peer Support Preventing Crisis

This group is currently running online and in Canterbury. This is a service for people in crisis or experiencing suicidal ideation. The group aims to provide distraction and peer support for people attending. This may involve cooking and eating together, games or other activities. The purpose is the provision of support to help people manage their crisis, meet other people and keep themselves well. They can also be shown what other groups or services are available in the community. It has been highly successful in helping people in distress to deal with difficult times when many other services are closed. This includes Bank Holidays, Christmas and New Year’s Day if these happen to fall on a Sunday.

Patients' Council

A unique project held at St Martin's Psychiatric Hospital where patients can discuss the ward experience and environment with an impartial Take Off Peer Worker. We anonymise the comments and share them verbatim with Ward Managers to help improve the services provided.

This has led to an improved ward experience for those detained as well as providing an anonymous route for in-patients to express their experience of the ward environment. Our trained Peer Support Workers visit each ward regularly. This provides the patients with an opportunity to discuss the ward environment and seek support. It has been an outlet for frustration but also a way for patients to compliment staff when things are going well.

User Voice

Take Off operates the mental health service user forums for Canterbury & Coastal, Ashford, Dover and Shepway, helping to shape the services. The forums exist for people who use support services, offering a safe space to give feedback. If you or someone you know would like to give feedback (can be anonymously!) visit our feedback page. We can also help with signposting and access to other services and support