North West

The North West

We're always looking to work in new areas.

Take a look through our existing North West services or use our contact form to get in touch.

The Ancora Project

Oldham Services

Energy Advice in Oldham

Knowsley Community Network

Warrington Networks

Oldham Support

Email: OldhamReferrals@keyring.org

Phone: Donna 07825 426 850

Everyone has things they want to do in life, like staying in their own home and making their own choices. Sometimes, you might need help to do these things. When you need extra help, you get something called an assessment. This helps to figure out how much help you need (your eligible needs).

Some of the money for this help might come from the local authority, but you might also have to pay for some of your support (a financial contribution) or you may pay for all of it yourself (this is called self-funding).

How KeyRing can help

KeyRing can help you live the life you want. We charge £22.15 per hour of support.

What KeyRing support covers

KeyRing’s support can help you meet your eligible needs. You can get support with:

Living your best life

Helping you to live well. You’ll get support with your physical and mental wellbeing. You’ll also be supported to manage your finances.

Living somewhere you love

You’ll get help to look after your home. This includes things like making sure your bills are paid and keeping things tidy and well maintained. You might even explore technology and adaptations that will help make your home work better for you.

Doing things that make good use of your time

You’ll explore what you want to do. This might be finding a new hobby, going on a course or finding employment or voluntary work.

Being safe

We’ll also support you to live safely, free from abuse and neglect.

Being connected

A good life is about having people in it that are important to you. This can mean helping you keep in touch with friends and family. It might even mean meeting new people. You’ll also be supported to be digitally connected with advice, training and equipment.

Making the most of your local area and beyond

We can help you find and get involved in things that are right for you. Like helping you to go shopping, join a new group or get to an appointment. Sometimes that might mean going further so, if you need it, we can support you with using public transport through travel training.

Making the most of your support time
You will probably want to use some of your time to get one to one support. This is time you can use to work on things that are personal to you. You might also want to use some of your hours with other people or a group. This can be a good way of making your hours go further. For example, you and a friend could get support together for two hours, and that would only use one hour for each of you. Or a group of you could get together for a meet up, combining a section of your support time each. So six people could use half an hour each to get support for a three hour hub or event. This is sometimes called pooling your budget.

Ancora

Sadly the Ancora Project has now closed.

You can still contact the Oldham Foodbank and Christians Against Poverty for crisis support.

Pamela

Pamela was in debt and living in unsuitable housing.

Woman in a purple top

Pamela is living in a place that she is proud to call home with neighbours who share her love of gardening.

About a year ago, Pamela was living in a cold, wet and unmaintained property. She couldn’t manage the stairs and slept downstairs, using a commode as a toilet and washing in the kitchen sink.

She had stacked up debts and could not see a way out.

Her dream was to live somewhere that she felt warm, safe and could have a shower.

With support from KeyRing Oldham, she set up agreements and direct debits so that she could manage her debt and have control over her money.

Then she set to work on finding her dream home. She was worried about selling her home and getting somewhere new. Her support worker explained that she’d be there every step of the way. Together they secured a sale for her house at a price Pamela was happy with, some amazing negotiation went on! Pamela got herself a lovely little bungalow through the local housing provider and has moved in.

Pamela has lovely neighbours who put her bins out for her each week, and help her keep her garden looking beautiful.

Pamela says "Thank you so much. I can’t believe how much I have achieved in such a short time with your help."

Peter

Peter is a KeyRing Member in Oldham. He shared his story with us as part of a webinar we organised with the Association of Mental Health Providers. It was held in Mental Health Awareness Week and the full video is available to watch on the AMHP website.

Mei

Mei's debt was affecting her mental health.

Woman in a green jacket

Mei is sociable and enjoys being part of KeyRing’s hubs and social activities.

Mei was great at hiding letters. She got to the point that she was even hiding them from herself. But there was always a niggling feeling and it began to affect her mental health. Her mental health got worse the more she ignored her problems. The worse her mental health got the more she hid her problems.

When Mei joined KeyRing she had a mountain of debt and relied on family members any time she wanted to leave the house. She did not feel confident in herself. She wanted this to change. She wanted to take back control of her life and finances.

She maximised her income by applying for anything she was entitled to. She set up payment plans for what she owed. Mei worked with the local Citizen’s Advice to get a debt relief order. She opened her letters and kept them to one side to discuss with her support worker. Gradually Mei built the skills to look after her own finances and needed less support. After two years Mei doesn’t need any support at all.

Mei also gained the confidence to get out and about independently and she still comes along to our hubs

Knowsley Community Network Support Scheme

Manager: Tracey Lloyd - 07415 216 628 - tracey.lloyd@keyring.org

Flexible support for people with a learning disability or who need some support with their mental health.

What is a Community Network Support Scheme?

Community Networks offer one to one support and support at our community hubs. You might want support with things like:

Finding somewhere to live and looking after your home.
Benefits: form filling, appeals and assessments.
Mail: reading, understanding and following up.
Setting up and paying bills.
Budgeting and financial support.
Reporting repairs and anti-social behaviour.
Finding other services that can help you.
Medical appointments and getting healthier.
Finding a job, getting into education or finding somewhere to volunteer doing something you enjoy.
Sharing skills and knowledge with others.
Being less isolated or lonely.

What we do

We will help you to develop your skills and connect with other people, organisations or services.

We will help you to think about a life that isn’t just about your support needs. In fact, you might find that you need less support as you become more connected. Really, we don’t want to be the centre of your life. Don’t worry though, we will always be around when you need us and you will be in charge of your own support.

You’ll be able to make new friends and socialise at the hubs. You have great skills and so do others in the network so we will help you to share those with each other, as well as sharing your interests and goals. This is called peer support.

Some of the information about what KeyRing can help with from the main page text, with orange stick figures illustrating the different things KeyRing can help with. At the bottom is a photo of Tracey, a white woman with an asymmetrical haircut, smiling at the camera.

KeyRing Out of Hours Service

You can contact Our Out of Hours service 24 hours a day. They can also contact you if you need it, for example to remind you to take your medication or just to make sure you’re ok.

Joining the Community Network Support Scheme

Your social worker can let us know that you are interested and then we will arrange to chat with you. We work with learning disability and mental health social workers.

If your support is funded by the council you may have to pay some money towards it. How much you pay depends on how much money you have. The council will meet with you to work this out.

You can speak with us about all of the different ways of accessing and funding our support including using a personal budget (direct payment or individual service fund) or through self funding.

A photo of Tracey. A white woman with dark hair that is longer on the left.

Hi, I'm Tracey. I love my job and the best bit is I get to meet new people and be part of their journey. I have met some very interesting Members in my time with KeyRing, who knows you could be the next one! On the days I am not working, I enjoy socialising with my family and friends.

Warrington Networks

Manager: Tracey Lloyd - 07415 216 628 - tracey.lloyd@keyring.org

We work all over Warrington with lots of different people.

The Adult Social Care team connects us with people who they think would benefit from getting some support.

What is KeyRing support like?

People who get support from KeyRing are called Members. As a KeyRing Member, we can support you to get your own home and can work with you to keep yourself safe. The best thing about KeyRing Membership is that support is there when you need it, and staff will help you to develop the skills you need to live the life you want. We also hope that this will lead to building friendships and sharing your skills and that you feel that you are part of your community.

We don’t provide housing but we can help you find a place to live if that’s what you need.

We don’t do personal care, but we can work alongside a care provider or help you find one that is right for you.

Once you’ve been with KeyRing for a while you might not need to see us as often. That’s fine – you can reduce the amount of support you get and spend more time living your life! If something happens and you need more support again we can do that too.

Eventually you might not need us at all, but even if you stop getting KeyRing support completely you can still come along to our hubs.

KeyRing Hubs

KeyRing Hubs are for KeyRing Members and anyone else who wants to come along. There are KeyRing staff there who can help people with things like letters or phone calls. There’s usually something fun happening, or you can just have a cup of tea and a chat.

Warrington Living Well Hub

26-30 Horsemarket St, Warrington WA1 1XL

The KeyRing Hub runs on Mondays from 10am-3pm.

“I’m a Member so I was getting support from KeyRing and already going to the hub. My support worker asked me to start volunteering there. I support other Members or just chat with them about their problems, and I run activities.

I enjoy it, it gets me out. It helps my own mental health. I know the staff there well. My goal is to get more Members along.”

– Sarah, Warrington

How do I get support from KeyRing?

If you are part of the Adult Social Care team you can use our Referral Form.

If you have a personal budget you can contact us directly:

Tracey Lloyd - 07415 216 628 - tracey.lloyd@keyring.org

Or download and fill in the Self Referral Form.

If you don’t have a personal budget you will need the Adult Social Care team to contact us for you.

If you’d like to have a chat about whether KeyRing is right for you, you can contact Tracey.

Man posting letter