New scheme announced to help people battling with their mental health

A mental health support service in Somerset has teamed up with a peer support group to offer wellbeing workshops with an aim of helping those majorly struggling mentally.  

Enable Support Services, which provides supporting living and community support to clients with mental health conditions and learning disabilities, has partnered with Chard WATCH Project – a scheme dedicated to creating specific environments to help people who suffer with their mental health.

Clients of the mental health support service can now receive support from the WATCH Project’s workshops around self-management and peer support, as well as health and wellbeing topics including budgeting, mindfulness, and social anxiety.

The workshops are designed for people who find evening classes or attending college difficult – they are set to take place in a relaxed learning space for individuals who struggle to work with other people around, providing both in-person and online training in small groups.

According to data reported by Mind last month, almost 20 million adults never speak about their mental health which has progressively declined since the beginning of the cost-of-living crisis.

The charity, which is dedicated to helping people with poor mental health, stated that over a third of adults aged 16+ in the UK never male space in their day to speak about mental health, which is why workshops, like the ones created by Chard, are vital.

Enable Support Services clients are referred to WATCH Project workshops – support worker Alex Madge established the referral scheme between Enable Support services and WATCH project.

He said he is excited about the brilliant opportunities WATCH Project workshops can offer their clients.

Alex said: ‘The workshops will open so many doors for our clients. I’ve taken part in the workshops myself when I was a user of Enable Support Services and I hope they can help people as much as they helped me.

‘That is why I introduced this referral scheme. If we feel our clients will benefit from the workshops we will refer them to the WATCH Project. They have so many different workshops on offer, they really are very beneficial.

‘As a partner with Open Mental Health, Chard WATCH Project offers lots of community support. This means our clients can receive a whole host of support from the NHS and volunteers.’

Image: Chard WATCH Project