Barnsley Street wins national building design award

Look Ahead are proud to announce that our Barnsley Street Neighbourhood Mental Health Centre took home a trophy at the National Housing with Care Awards, run by Care Talk.

The centre, which is the first of its kind in England, and serves as a community-based support hub for people with mental health needs in Bethnal Green, triumphed in the Building Design category.

The service manager Hannah Lawless and a customer from the service lifted the prize at the ceremony last Friday night (5 June) on behalf of the team.

The service is run and developed by a partnership made up of Look Ahead, the East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) and the Tower Hamlets Mental Health Alliance and was recognised for the range of modifications to several Look Ahead properties that created the service, as well as the fantastic wellbeing outcomes it has supported individuals to achieve.

Just a few of these changes included the re-modification of several flats to create guest rooms for individuals coming for support to stay overnight where needed, the development of inviting communal spaces for therapeutic group and individual activities and support sessions, accessibility-focused adjustments and a new welcoming reception area to name a few.

The planned works were brought to fruition by a partnership between Look Ahead’s property team, GDS Chartered Surveyors and contractors Chas Berger, while the architectural design of the project was led by Jason Danziger at thinkbuild architecture BDA (Berlin), who also served as Therapeutic Atmospheric Design Consultant.

Service Manager Hannah Lawless said: “We are beyond delighted to have our service recognised in this way. When we launched Barnsley Street around a year ago, championing a new community-based approach to mental health was at the core of the project. Winning this award is yet more proof that our model works and can be replicated elsewhere nationwide.”

Barnsley Street however, was not the only Look Ahead initiative to be recognised at the awards, our customer newsletter Heads-Up was highly commended in the Tenant Co-Production Category, meanwhile our Hackney care home service’s Felstead Street made it to the finals with their Arts for All programme for the Outreach Community Service award.