In April 2012, Service User Director Mike Crump and Volunteers Tony Mills and Donovan Salmon visited the Whitechapel and Spitalfields area of London.

Mike is a former West Midlands Police Murder Detective, Tony a keen Heritage Investigator and Donovan inquisitive about the history of London.

Mike has some interesting ancestral links to the area. In the 1870s, his paternal Great Grandfather Thomas Crump at the age of 14 ran away from home in Reading where his Father worked for Huntley and Palmer’s the Biscuit Factory settling for a time in Shoreditch in the East End of London. In order to conceal his whereabouts from his family Thomas, after arriving in the capital, changed his name to Thomas Thornton Crump from Thornton Crump. His Father Edward Crimp had been born in Devon but had himself prior to moving his family to Reading lived and worked in the City of London as a Police Officer in the 1860s.

In the late 17th Century after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France Protestant Huguenots were expelled from Catholic France many coming to England settling in the Spitalfields area many of whom were expert weavers of silk. Others settled in other areas of the country including Manchester and Gornal in the Black Country including another ancestral wing of Mike’s family through his paternal Grandmother, the Huntbatch family. The Gornal accent distinctive from others within the Black Country is today believed to derive by linguists from English and Huguenots dialect.

Parts of Tony’s ancestry lie in Northern Ireland. By the 1880s Whitechapel was home to huge numbers of Irish and Jewish Immigrants from Eastern Europe and Tsarist Russia all living in conditions of extreme poverty and overcrowding.By 1888 it was estimated that there were 62 brothels and 1200 prostitutes operating in the Parish of Whitechapel alone as mark of the hard lives lived by its residents. The area was notorious for crime.

Tony has a passion for heritage including crime heritage. Being in Whitechapel and Spitalfields he was certainly in the right area which was associated with the crimes in 1888 of one – Jack the Ripper!

Throughout the autumn and winter of 1888 the infamous “Jack” murdered at least five and maybe more women. Criminologists disagree on the number of victims of the same killer with Tony pictured below in what was George Yard where the body of probably the Rippers first victim Martha Tabram was discovered on 7th April 1888 just around the corner from The White Hart Pub.

Below in the basement of the White Hart at the time was a Barbers Shop worked in by one Severin Antoniovich Klosowlski later to change his name to George Chapman. Although the Ripper was never identified Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline (Scotland Yard) believed Klosowski to be the culprit. Chapman was eventually hanged on April 7th 1903 for murdering three of his wives.

Tony is also pictured outside The Tens Bells Pub in Spitalfields frequented by at least two of the Rippers Victims Liz Stride and Catherine Eddowes.

Also living in Whitechapel at the time of the Murders was one Joseph Carey Merrick known to history as the Elephant Man. Although often associated with the gloom of Victorian London Merrick was in fact born in Leicester ending up in the Workhouse when his gradually deteriorating condition made it impossible for him to continue working as a hawkster in his native Leicester. He wrote to and was taken out of the workhouse by showman Sam Torr who engaged him in Victorian Freak shows for which Merrick was always grateful.

Merrick was exhibited in London for the first time in a “Penny Gaff Shop” right opposite the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel in what is now a Shari Shop. It was here that he was first seen by and met a Surgeon from the Hospital Frederick Treves who later took him into his care as an inpatient at the Hospital. Merrick lived out his life in rooms at the rear of the Hospital in Bedstead Square passing away on 11th April 1890. Possessions of Merrick and his skeleton can still be seen today in the Hospital Museum.

Whilst in Whitechapel Tony also visited the scene of another infamous crime committed 78 years after the Ripper Murders.

Tony is pictured to the right, in front of The Blind Beggar Pub in Whitechapel High Street where on 9th March 1966 East End Gangster Ronnie Kray shot George Cornell in front of witnesses in the pub a crime for which Kray was later convicted. Tony is also standing roughly in the spot where in 1865 William Booth made his first sermon leading to the founding of The Salvation Army.

Returning to the Ripper, there is a further twist in the tale. The Ripper’s fifth victim Katherine Eddowes was actually born in the 1860s in Wolverhampton, and later christened at St Marys Church in Bushbury, Wolverhampton. The same church and font where Mike Crump was christened in 1970! Eddowes lies buried in Manor Farm Cemetery in Forest Gate, London.

All in all it was a very interesting trip for everyone who came, especially the service users, and allowed them to discover some of the unique of the history and heritage embedded in London, related to mental crimes.

Outreach Counsellor

Salary Rate: £10 per hour

(WMFMHS) are seeking a part time Outreach Counsellor to deliver the counselling service within the Redditch and Bromsgrove Childrens Centres.

Hours: 18 then 24 hours per week alternately
Term: Fixed term until September 30th 2012 initially
Start date: To be confirmed
Interview date: To be confirmed

Essential

• Minimum Advanced Diploma in Counselling
• At least 2 years experience of counselling provision for both individuals and couples.
• Integrative approach
• BACP member

Desired

• Family/group therapy counselling experience
• Experience of working with domestic violence and particularly male perpetrators
• The post is a fixed term contract for 6 months initially and is for 18 hours per week with each alternate week
• working 24 hours per week. There may also be an opportunity to become co-facilitator on a Domestic Violence
• Program for male perpetrators which is a behavioural change program addressing violent and abusive behaviours
• of men who require contact with their children through court proceedings. This is anticipated to be evening work
• (possibly 1 evening per week).
• CPD training will be provided at My Time CIC offices in Small Heath, Birmingham.

Please read the full job description for this role: Outreach Counsellor (PDF)

Applications
Please apply for this post by downloading the following job application form.

My Time Job Application Form (Word document)

Send the completed form by post or as a scanned document by email to:

Post: Jayne Mason, Director, West Mercia Family Mental Health Services, c/o Redditch Coop Homes, Britten
House, Britten Street, Redditch, B97 6HD

Email: jaynem@mytime.org.uk

Application deadline: Wednesday 23rd May 2012

Domestic Violence Counsellor/Outreach Worker

Hours: 13 hours per week
Salary: £9.00 per hour
Term: Fixed term until March 31st 2013
Start date: To be confirmed.
Interview date: To be confirmed.

The role of the Domestic Violence Counsellor/Outreach Worker will be to provide culturally appropriate outreach provision brief counselling, intervention befriending, information and advice to professionals, service users and carers on how to support women with mental health who have been subjected to domestic violence. The candidate will be expected to manage their own caseload and maintain client records in accordance to BACP Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Candidate Attributes
The candidate will need to be qualified to have the following attributes:

• Qualified to degree level in the Healthcare field
• Hold a postgraduate diploma/degree in Integrative Counselling
• Be a member of the BACP
• Be accredited by the BACP or actively working towards accreditation
• Have a specialism or keen interest in DV
• Be in receipt of clinical supervision of the BACP requirements of 1.5 hours per month

Please read the full job description for this role before applying: Domestic Violence Counsellor/Outreach Worker (PDF)

Applications
Please apply for this post by downloading the following job application form:

My Time Job Application Form (MS-Word document)

Send the completed form by post or as a scanned document by email to:

Post: Sheena Chauda, My Time CIC, 172 Herbert Road, Small Heath, Birmingham, B10 0PR.
Email: sheena@mytime.org.uk

For further information please call: Telephone: 0121 766 4925

Application deadline: Friday 13th April 2012

Commercial Services Manager

Salary: £26,000 – £30,000 depending on experience

Reporting to the Managing Director this role offers an exciting opportunity to market & grow My Time’s portfolio of community based mental health and training services and the roll out of a National Social Franchise programme.

Specific Key Tasks

• Support the development, commercialisation and maximising the commercial potential of training services to a range of sectors, including private companies, the public and third sector agencies.
• Work with the Senior Management Team in supporting the administrative aspects of existing and future contracts secured by the organisation and produce relevant performance monitoring reports.
• Manage and monitor the financial functions and work with outsourced financial service providers to ensure accurate preparation of monthly financial reporting processes.
• Proactively identify and implement effective marketing and PR tactics to raise awareness of the organisation as one of the UK’s leading, innovative mental health service providers.
• Work with internal and external partners, in writing and submitting grant applications and bids to funding bodies, public agencies and commercial commissioners for projects and contracts relevant to the organisations services.
• Oversee the HR administrative functions including supporting the preparation of job descriptions, issuing of employment contracts and maintenance of employment records.
• Manage the Administration and supervise the administrative functions of client facing services including the Client Services Team, reception, telephone and IT services.

Please read the full job description for this role: Commercial Services Manager (PDF)

Interviews will be held week commencing 20th February 2012 at our Birmingham office.

Applications
Please apply for this post by downloading the following job application form:

My Time Job Application Form (MS-Word document)

Send the completed form by post or as a scanned document by email to:

Post: Sylvia Samuda, My Time CIC, 172 Herbert Road, Small Heath, Birmingham, B10 0PR.
Email: info@mytime.org.uk

For further information please call:
Telephone: 0121 766 6699

Application Close: 17/02/2012