One in 25 Hampshire residents receive mental health support from Solent Mind over past year

Solent Mind, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in November 2022, provided mental health support for 54,886 people, nearly 15,000 more than in the previous year.

CEO Sally Arscott said: ‘The breadth and depth of our services has grown, as we support people from across Hampshire, Southampton and Portsmouth.

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‘We champion the growing awareness of mental health and welcome the reduction in stigma to accessing support, but there is much more to do. Our task is to reach out to everyone, and ensure that anyone who needs our help, is able to access it.’

Based in Southampton, the charity also operates in Portsmouth, Fareham, Eastleigh, Hythe and the New Forest.

Almost 4,000 people received crisis support at the Lighthouse in Southampton and the Harbour in Portsmouth, which both offer out of hours health services.

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Speaking about these statistics, We Are Hummingbird founder and mental health first aid instructor Ian Hurst said: ‘It doesn’t surprise me. It actually fills me with joy because what that shows is that probably more people are recognising that they need to get support.

‘For years people have been digging their heads in the sand and pretending there’s nothing wrong.

‘What we’re seeing now is more people recognising that mental health is a very real thing. We’ve seen a big, big increase, predominantly in people wanting to learn more about preventative measures. We expect to see it rise next year as well.’

Ian trains people to recognise mental health problems and feels that poor media representation has led some to be confused about certain conditions, adding to the stigma around them. He cited schizophrenia and OCD as two particluar conditions which have been trivialised by their popular portrayals.

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Ian, 40, from Fareham, said: ‘As a nation we’ve got such a big job ahead of us about trying to educate people on the facts. What we have is people not really being able to articulate how theyre feeling.’

He added: ‘We will be busy going into the new year, but we’re busy every day. We’re busy all year round.’