Mental Health and Wellbeing

Organisations Working for Mental Health Across Sussex

The Wild Mind Project

The Wild Mind Project supports the emotional and mental wellbeing of young people, usually aged between 16 and 25. They run programmes specifically to support the young LGBTQ+ community for ages 11 to 15 and 16 to 25. Occasionally, they run programmes for particularly vulnerable groups, such as young people with mild to moderate learning disabilities or young carers.

Their programmes have been designed to improve young people’s connectedness to nature. The unique combination of nature interventions, creative activities, mindful exercises and peer support can benefit mental health considerably. The programmes can complement or offer an alternative to therapy.

The Wild Mind Project programmes can be booked by completing their online booking form - https://thewildmindproject.org/booking-form/

allsorts youth project

Allsorts Youth Project listens to, connects & supports children & young people under 26 who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or exploring their sexual orientation and/or gender identity (LGBT+) and their families. To ensure competency across the board, all their staff have undertaken inclusion training, which has equipped them with skills to empathetically work with children and young people from all walks of life.

If you have any questions about their services, please email them using the following contact details or call our office on 01273 721100. If you are a young person and would like to access our services, or are making a referral on behalf of a young person, please click the 'make a referral' button.

You can find all of their contact details here: https://www.allsortsyouth.org....

Mind West Sussex

West Sussex Mind is an independent local charity. They support people with their mental health, provide specialist training and campaign to improve services and promote understanding.

It is important to Mind that anyone in West Sussex is able to get support. So Mind's work includes outreach to ensure those who most need us know about us and feel able to ask for help. Mind are working with a wide variety of communities and have Ukrainian support available, help for children, young people, adults, older people, parents, carers and families.

AYA – As You Are

As You Are provides affordable counselling and group work for depression, stress and anxiety for people living in East and West Sussex. AYA believe that counselling and psychotherapy should be accessible to all who wish to access support. For that reason, we are committed to providing low-cost counselling and psychological support for individuals and couples across Sussex.

HOPE Charity Project

HOPE is dedicated to raising awareness of the mental health crisis affecting so many young people today. They aim to work closely with families with current and growing concerns. They may be alone struggling at home, behind closed doors, or are already in the overwhelming hospital admittance system, finding it challenging to cope.

HOPE offer a compassionate approach to providing advice, guidance, and comfort to young people and seek to support the wider family, including parents, and siblings; who are all affected by this growing nationwide crisis.

The Clare Project

The Clare Project began in 2000 when a group of trans women started meeting in the back room of a hairdressing salon to discuss issues affecting their local community. We are now a registered charity run by and for trans, non-binary, gender-variant and gender-questioning people in Brighton & Hove, West Sussex and East Sussex. We run psychosocial support groups, information sessions, workshops and excursions, as well as providing information and training for individuals and organisations on community needs, and connecting people to affirmative peer support, psychotherapy and healthcare. We also offer some support and advocacy for people who are intersex / have variations in their biological sex characteristics.

Pregnancy in Mind

Pregnancy in Mind is a preventative mental health service designed to support parents-to-be who are at risk of, or currently, experiencing, mild to moderate anxiety or depression during their pregnancy.

It is a group work service, where expecting parents can come together and build relationships, knowledge and skills that helps them manage any difficulties they are experiencing. The ultimate objective of this service is to build parents’ capacity to provide sensitive, responsive care to their babies – and help parents keep these new skills up post-natally and as their children develop.

Referrals opened in West Sussex (Adur and Worthing) in February 2024. If you have any questions you would like to ask outside of the slots or would like to have an enquiry call to make a referral, you can contact: LondonandSEregionalhubduty@nspcc.org.uk

Online Links and Resources

Mental Health Awareness: an animated video can be found here: Mental Health Awareness: an animated video

Showing kindness to yourself and others: Kindness and Mental Health

For useful contact numbers have a look at: Go for Green and Green to Go sheet.

Mental Health and Wellbeing information sheet and booklet for churches on mental health and faith: Faith report

Mental Health and Money: Permission to seek help: Mental Health and Money

Advice for Churches

Tackling the subject of mental health and making sure your space is supportive and helpful are often tricky tasks. The lack of discussion on mental health in the church can make it challenging for individuals to seek needed help and support—from one of the best places to receive hope and healing.

Having a public space to go to can be a great support system for some members of the community. Making sure your church (or other religious or community space) is welcoming, inviting and supportive is crucial in helping to build these foundations for your local community. Places of Welcome, a join project between The Church Urban Fund and Near Neighbours. Places of Welcome is a growing network of local community groups providing their neighbourhoods with places where all people feel safe to connect, belong and contribute. Joining the Places of Welcome network provides a place for people to connect with one another, find belonging and offer gifts and skills that interest them.

You can find out some helpful guidelines and advice from Resource UMC on their website here: https://www.resourceumc.org/en...

Want to get involved?

The NHS Sussex Partnership Volunteer Service recruits, trains and provides ongoing support to volunteers in a wide range of projects. They welcome volunteers from all areas of our diverse community, who feel they have something to offer to help enhance the service they provide to our service users.

Who can volunteer?

• Are you 18 years old or over? There is no upper age limit to volunteer with us.
• Do you enjoy helping others?
• Would you be willing to volunteer on a regular basis for a minimum of once a week for 6 months?
• Do you have the right to work in the UK?

If your answer is 'yes' to all of these questions, the Volunteer Service would love to chat to you about how you can get involved. From simply listening and chatting or playing board games over a cup of tea, to arranging quizzes, spending time together gardening or making music, the volunteers bring a huge amount of value to the services. Volunteers are instrumental in encouraging service users to get involved and even try new things, which can be really helpful to some people on their recovery journey. Find out more here.

You can also volunteer with Mind West Sussex. We sometimes have specific roles at our community projects and events for which we require volunteers as well as positions in areas including marketing, fundraising and administration.

A volunteer for one of Mind's community projects might support individuals who need a bit more help with an activity. If you feel you would be good at spending time with people and talking to them and suggesting or leading activities appropriate to the group, this could be for you.

Other roles, such as in fundraising or marketing, could include raising awareness of Mind, being active in the community, administrative tasks and helping to run events. Find out more here.

Also, check out inside individual Mind charity shops across Sussex as they are usually looking for more volunteers for the shop.


Finally, donations are an easy and simple yet crucial way to help support organisations and people who are giving back to the community.