Help is at hand - Hub Of Hope
What is the Hub of Hope?
The Hub of Hope is the UK’s leading mental health support database. It is provided by national mental health charity, Chasing the Stigma, and brings local, national, peer, community, charity, private and NHS mental health support and services together in one place for the first time.
Initially a simple spreadsheet of local services populated at the kitchen table of Chasing the Stigma founder and CEO, Jake Mills, the Hub of Hope was born out of Jake’s own lived experience of extreme mental and emotional distress. He witnessed first-hand the difficulties in finding relevant, accessible and nearby support when it was most needed and decided to take action.
To date, the Hub of Hope has directed hundreds of thousands of people to life-changing and even life-saving support and it is now the UK’s go-to mental health support signposting tool, with thousands of local, regional and national support groups and services listed.
Who is the Hub of Hope for?
If you are here then it is likely that you, or someone you care about, is experiencing mental and emotional distress that – right now - feels unbearable and overwhelming.
We all cope in different ways with experiences that feel unbearable and overwhelming. We may feel low, despairing, helpless, and withdraw from contact with others. We may feel so desperate that we consider taking, or attempt to take our own lives. Alternatively, we may experience the sensation that things are speeding up, with an increased desire to communicate with others. There may be a sense of inner and outer experiences starting to blur, and we may feel as if we’re losing contact with what most people consider to be reality.
We also all make sense of our experiences of mental and emotional distress in different ways.
For some of us it is helpful to have a name – often called a diagnosis - for what we are experiencing. Sometimes we may understand our experiences as an illness. For others our mental and emotional distress is an understandable response to difficult life events, relationships and circumstances, including things that happened when we were younger. And for some of us our mental and emotional distress may be seen as a necessary but painful process of growth, sometimes called a spiritual crisis.
We want to ensure that all of us - no matter what we are experiencing, or how we see and understand our experiences - feel welcome on the Hub of Hope. We have tried to ensure that both the support and services listed, and the language that we use on the Hub of Hope is inclusive of all of these experiences and the different ways we make sense of them.
Since we all experience some kind of mental or emotional distress at some point in our lives, the Hub of Hope is really for everyone.
The services and support listed on the Hub of Hope are not only for when things become unbearable – a crisis point. They are also for those times when we notice we are starting to struggle, or when we need extra support as we start to emerge from a particularly difficult time.
The Hub of Hope also lists support and services for family members and friends to enable them to find help for themselves, as well as for the person they are supporting. We recognise that the wellbeing of each member of an interconnected family or community is dependent on the wellbeing of all of its members.
If you or someone you know feels suicidal, or may be a danger to themselves or others, call 999, your local crisis service or contact Samaritans or Crisis Text Line directly through the Hub of Hope app, via the Need Help Now? Button.
