Beyond Barriers CIC
3
3rd Floor
City / Suburb: Altrincham
Website URL: https://www.beyondbarriers.uk
Postal Code: WA14 2QD
Contact this SE
Description of SE/Org:

We are a community-focused trauma and wellbeing service which brings together psychology, yoga, nutrition and peer-support. We offer a more progressive way to help individuals, organisations and communities move beyond stress, adversity and trauma.

It is our mission to improve affordable access to high quality support for our mental health within compassionate, trauma-aware, socially-connected communities.

As a not-for-profit social enterprise, we are committed to addressing gaps in trauma care and generating subsidised treatment for low income groups in our complex trauma programme, LifeBEAT.

Products or services sold:

We have expertise in supporting people with a wide range of emotional, relational & mental health needs, including healing from the effects of trauma & adversity.

We offer psychological therapy, yoga therapy, Nutritional therapy & Peer support. Our doors are open to a range of emotional and physical needs, but we specialise in supporting people who have experienced adversity & trauma in their early or later lives.

We also support organisations by offering staff support and training, including 'Emotional Resilience during Covid' workshops. We can offer differing levels of Staff Wellbeing support depending on an organisations needs and budget. They are based on compassion-focused therapy approaches to wellbeing (CFT).
Social mission:
Mental health and well-being

Mission Statement:
It is our mission to improve affordable access to good quality support within compassionate, trauma-aware & socially-connected communities.

Beyond Barriers was created because there are unmet needs in the mental health of our communities. Many of us recognise the gaps created by lack of resources but we believe there are other reasons that need to be acknowledged:

- There are a group of people who fall between statutory services or struggle to access effective treatment. These gaps in complex trauma care are exacerbated by the use of medical diagnosis to identify need and commission services, as many people with complex trauma difficulties do not 'fit' into established diagnoses. This means people can be misdiagnosed or not accepted into services.

- There is a need for more progressive and non-medicalised understanding of our mental health and responses to trauma, enabling more holistic and accessible treatment approaches

​- More value needs to be placed on lived experience roles and (community) asset-based approaches to mental health and complex trauma - including development of therapeutic networks and trauma awareness in communities.

- More value needs to be placed in the spaces in which people go to heal; we need more therapeutic accommodation and trauma-informed service planning.

- There is inequity in access to support - people's life experiences often mean they struggle to access statutory support and are financially excluded from private treatment.

- Equally, people who are able to choose independent treatment need high quality, integrated, trauma-informed and multi-disciplinary services in one place.

​- The level of social disconnection and stigma still needs further attention and could be tackled by the development of trauma-sensitive, compassionate communities

- We also believe that there is a growing need for not-for-profit social enterprises and 3rd sector community organisations to develop services and partnerships. They offer innovative solutions to social need with the interests of their communities at their core.

​Our founders made a commitment to understand these social needs, and develop a community-based social enterprise through which to create change. We are committed to working with like-minded people, organisations and community stakeholders along this journey.

Our Vision & Values

​It is our aim to address these social needs by:

​- Offering a more holistic approach to emotional health and wellbeing, bringing together an innovative range of specialists.

​- Raising awareness of a trauma-informed approach, by promoting non-pathologising, non-medicalised understanding of our mental health

- Promoting and creating roles for people with lived experience of psychological distress and using services.

​- Creating trauma-sensitive networks and partnerships developed for and by our community.

We stay aligned with our vision by upholding our commitment to our values of Compassion, Connection, Authenticity, Social Justice, and by using Trauma-informed, Empowering, and Integrated approaches.
​
We understand the challenges of creating and driving a business that has social impact at its heart - it is inspiring but also demanding. Many of us work with people, which bring additional emotional demands to the work we do - especially when those people have complex needs or are struggling with high levels of adversity. This can create significant levels of our own stress to manage. We are psychologists experienced in providing staff support and Emotional Resilience workshops - where you can map out your own, or your teams responses to stress and consider effective, compassionate ways to manage that. We would be happy to support you with workshops and/or ongoing support sessions.

We are also developing our 'Therapeutic Towns' project, where we want to collaborate with local businesses, practitioners to build a network of trauma-sensitive providers for people who struggle to engage with mainstreams businesses, community activities and organisations. This will be through trauma-awareness training, helping you create trauma-sensitive working environments and ongoing support/referral opportunities.