Our services

The William Morris Centre is Oxleas Forensic Psychological Therapies Service’s central hub. We use a team-based model for assessments and provide group psychological therapy for outpatients in the boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, and Greenwich.

We work with people whose complex traumatic experiences and interpersonal difficulties have contributed to significant levels of offending behaviour.

Patients have often experienced traumatic events that affect their ability to form and sustain relationships. It also makes it difficult for them to understand the harm they have caused others.

The service caters for those who are at risk of future harmful offending. It is also for people who cannot access assessment and intervention services in other ways.

The service provides a stepped-care approach and features psychosocial interventions, including our horticulture project and access to our pet therapy dog, Mason.

The Branching Out Gardening Project

The William Morris Centre runs a weekly gardening group for service users who are engaging in, or have previously engaged in, therapy here. We take a trauma-informed approach to gardening and aim to nurture and empower our clients. This involves using the garden as a stable base from which to build confidence, cultivate trust and explore new skills.

By removing hierarchy and taking a collaborative approach to tasks, we hope to give disempowered individuals a voice by offering choice and flexibility. All seeds, bulbs and shrubs currently in the garden have been chosen and planted by our service users.

By promoting compassion towards one another, we hope to create a safe environment that promotes a purpose and meaning that can be replicated in the wider community.

Social Support and Wellbeing Clinic

The complex nature of our service users means they are often situated within chaotic environments. This can make it difficult to engage in therapy.

As a result, we offer a weekly Social Support and Wellbeing Clinic for clients engaging in therapy with the service. It aims to help stabilise service users’ social circumstances and better equip them to deal with the demands of therapeutic groups.

In the past, support has included:

• Helping with budgeting
• Liaising with external organisations
• Linking in with local Exercise Referral Programmes
• Accompanying individuals to community groups or Recovery Colleges
• Helping people discover volunteering opportunities

Treatment pathways

After being accepted to the service, individuals are likely to be offered up to six assessment sessions. Afterwards, their assessing clinician will make recommendations for the best next steps. This might be an onward referral to an appropriate service or a referral to our group therapeutic programme.

Our group therapeutic programme follows two main pathways:

• A Mentalisation Based Therapy (MBT) pathway to better understand and manage the mental states of self and others.
• A trauma pathway to set the foundations for processing traumatic experiences and managing their impact.

The William Morris Centre also provides a systemic pathway to consider complex dynamics in couples and families. This is complemented by a support and well-being clinic to connect service users with their local area and offer supplementary practical support.

As part of our model, we work proactively with external care coordinators and services to ensure individuals’ therapeutic needs are met alongside the care they receive in other areas.