Darlington Mind

Who we are

We are a registered local charity based in the North East of England, working across Darlington, County Durham, Hambleton & Richmondshire.

We provide a wide range of support services including wellbeing and recovery services to help people experiencing emotional and mental health problems. We assist people of all ages including children, parents, families, adults and carers, and also provide training solutions to businesses to help a maintain a healthy workforce.

We are an independent charity but are affiliated to Mind the national charity and work closely as part of a federation of other local Mind associations across the country. We all work together to support people’s mental health and wellbeing. We also work with a number of other local organisations, constantly striving to improve what we do, raise awareness of positive mental health, promote understanding, reduce stigma and discrimination.

We first opened our doors in 1979 and, since then, we have helped thousands of people achieve and maintain good mental health and wellbeing.

Our culture and values

The following values represent who we are and what we strive to do at Darlington Mind:

• RESILIENCE - We will strive to help people achieve and maintain emotional resilience and be resilient as an organisation

• EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY - We will promote and champion Equality & Diversity inclusive of individuals who identify as from LGBTQIA+ (LGBTQIA+ support from Arcus) or BAME communities, including all types of disability or ability, religion or culture

• COMMUNITY - We will provide the best support for people in our local Community and strive to bring people to help each other

• CARE – Care surrounds all we do in the way we support people and each other

• RESPECT – for everyone we help and work with, other organisations, communities and each other

• COLLABORATION - We strive to work collaboratively with those accessing support, each other, other service providers, partners and stakeholders at all levels for mutual benefit

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

Our work and organisation benefits from a workforce which brings a range of life experiences, cultural and community backgrounds and past professional lives. We affirm these differences, and are committed to developing workplaces which respect individuals and value this diversity, including recognition that a minority of Mind staff work from home or small rented offices, separate from the headquarters in Cardiff and London and need to be integrated into all work processes.

Mind will seek to provide supportive mechanisms, in terms of induction, training and personal support, to enable this group of staff to work on an equal level with staff who do not have this personal experience.