We are delighted to announce our new partnership with Showmen’s Mental Health Awareness Charity that we officially launched on Monday 11th September 2023 as part of Suicide Prevention Week.
Showmen’s Mental Health are a charity founded and run by people from the Showmen and Fairground community. Their aim is to break the stigma around mental health in their community. This includes providing support, information and mental health services to all Showmen in the UK and Ireland, (of all ages).
Mental Health Services:
The Showmen’s Mental Health Awareness Charity offer funding for private therapy and counselling. The charity has two mental health nurses specialising in both adults & children, who take self-referrals from our website and can assess current concerns.
The charity will provide service users with 3 months of funding (12 sessions) for therapy services that can be extended depending on circumstances and progress to 20 sessions.
They can also supply a small grant for drugs and rehabilitation services.
Education:
The Showmen’s Mental Health Awareness Charity believes that education is prevention.
The Charity aims to support their community with educational materials, workshops and lectures for both adults and children.
These include a monthly Mental Health Workshop that cover a variety of topics including: Men’s Mental Health, Women’s Mental Health, Suicide Prevention, Mental Health in the Fairground Industry.
Furthermore, the Show Smart Campaign celebrates knowledge passed down from generations of showmen.
Awareness:
The Showmen’s Mental Health Awareness Charity aims to spread awareness through a variety of outreach events and online campaigns to break the stigma surrounding mental health within our community. Please look out for an event going on near you.
Check out their Website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages for the latest updates, as well as mental health advice and tips.
Liverpool Samaritans Call Back Service:
As part of our new partnership, we are offering Showmen’s Mental Health Charity service users access to our Liverpool Samaritans Call Back Service.
This involves our Branch receiving referrals via an online form located on the Showmen’s Mental Health Charity website from people in their community who need emotional support. By providing us with some basic information we will then facilitate a Call Back from one of our Listening Volunteers at a time that is convenient for the caller.
Joint Training and Awareness Sessions:
As part of our ongoing partnership, we have provided some awareness sessions to members of both the Showmen’s Mental Health Charity and members of their community explaining what services we provide at Samaritans and how people can access us.
This hopefully gave reassurances to people on what to expect when using us, particularly first-time callers to the service.
In return the Showmen’s Mental Health Charity have facilitated awareness sessions to our volunteers about the history of the Showmen and Fairground community and in particular the stigma that exists around mental health and suicide.
These sessions gave us an excellent insight into the lives of Showmen and Fairground people and enabled us to better understand the challenges they face every day.