Somerset Mental Health Support Service Collaborates with Peer Support Group

A mental health support service based in Somerset has collaborated with a peer support group in Chard to offer wellbeing workshops and life skills courses to its service users.

Enable Support Services, which provides supporting living and community support to clients with mental health conditions and learning disabilities, has buddied up with Chard WATCH Project.

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.

The workshops 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.

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 added: “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.”