Hull and East Yorkshire Mind is a charity that provides advice and support to help and empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. Mind started in 1976 and delivers specialist mental health services to individuals and their families. 

Mind campaigns to improve mental health facilities and reduce shame, stigma and discrimination surrounding mental health. Every night Wellington house provides the crisis pad where people are  refereed to by mental health practitioners to prevent hospital admissions. 

Mind supplies many current services including providing houses for homeless people with mental health problems/conditions and providing counselling for mild to moderate anxiety and depression.

Facts you may not know about mental heath:

Mental health issues in Hull, in one year approximately 52,000 people over 16 will experience mental health problems, this is over 1/4 of the population(Emotional Wellbeing and Suicide Prevention/Hull City Council 2003).

 Every week in England 6 in 100 people are diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder.(Mental Health Statistics 2023 Data/Champion Health). 

Workers at Mind see that poor mental health/mental health conditions are linked mainly to childhood trauma, bereavement, domestic violence, and growing up with a parent that has mental health problems but the list is endless.

Interview with a housing support worker: Nikki Williams:

Nikki Williams is a housing support worker who has had this job for around two and a half years.

Q: How long do people stay with mind? 

A: “People will stay around one to two years, depending on the issues surrounding their mental health and finding a new home after sorting out benefits.”

 

Q: What are the homes you provide? 

A: “We provide supporter shared accommodation which means the person has a tenancy and is living with housing benefits paid, and they will share living room, bathroom and kitchen areas with other individuals.” 

 

Q: What other kinds of problems do people experience other than mental health? 

A: “Often people who have poor coping skills and past trauma are fond of having self/medicated with prescription drugs, street drugs and alcohol. Very common occurrences are family breakdowns, isolation and crime. Housing support workers work with social workers, probation workers and REN EN workers(alcohol and drugs) to help people rebuild their lives.”