Dial House

What We Believe

Each individual has their own experience of crisis. The causes and impact of crisis will be different for each person. We believe that people are expert in knowing their own situations and with the right kind of attention and support can find their own solutions.

People have told us that some of the characteristics of crisis are:

- An overwhelming experience

- More than the person can deal with

- Not one’s normality

- Usually intolerable

- Highly stressful

- Having nowhere to turn

- Having exhausted all one’s coping strategies.

Crisis is sometimes described as a time of change or a turning point in one’s life: a period of breakthrough or breakdown.

Crisis can be a liberating or learning experience.

People in crisis should have a range of choices for dealing with a crisis. Our services may be used as an alternative to statutory services, or may complement involvement in mainstream services.

We believe that to deal with a crisis, a person must feel safe, listened to, and connected to other people.

We want to know about the person, not the label they have been given.

People in crisis are not essentially different from anyone else and everyone in his or her life will experience crisis at one time or another.

We recognise that the city of Leeds is made up of many different groups, traditions and cultures. We respect and are responsive to the fact that social factors in a person’s life shape both their understanding of crisis and their way of dealing with crisis. We also recognise that deprivation and oppression not only impact on people’s ability to cope with distress, but can be the cause of distress.