We are a Chester based charity that offers counselling and play therapy support to families- adults, children and young people living in relative poverty who are experiencing mental health issues. We focus on strengthening family relationships and creating more stable and nurturing environments for children, recognising that a child's mental health is affected not only by past hurts and traumas, but also by the overall mental health and well-being of their parents or carers. Our goal is to stop the cycle of poor mental health being passed down from one generation to the next and through early intervention, to stop poor mental health becoming a life-long disability.
The clients we work with often struggle to access other mental health provision because they’re deemed unsuitable, not ready for counselling or have had difficulties engaging - perhaps because they’re required to travel to appointments. Statutory mental health services are under pressure and the threshold for being seen is also very high, with long wait times for those who do make it through. This means many of the most vulnerable people, living with a combination of poverty and poor mental health, fail to access any help.
We find operating locally in clients’ communities in a very flexible way minimises the barriers to them accessing help. We work on a short referral time of around 4 weeks and meet with them in schools, community centres, GPs and our own centrally based office, wherever is convenient and easy for them to come to. Clients typically attend 12 or more sessions before they feel ready to finish, with the understanding that they can access our service again if they require it.
Demand for our services is high and support from the Pixel Fund will help us expand the number of counselling sessions we have available over the next 12 months, for clients to be referred into.
““I started believing that I will drown in this situation and no one will ever come to rescue me. I was in my darkest phrase of life. Lost all hope for recovery. Platform of life acted like a lifeline for me.” Parent