A local community counselling service has been awarded £50,000 from Big Issue Invest, an investment arm of the Big Issue magazine.
The funding will go towards supporting NW Counselling Hub to provide mental health support to people living in county of Lincolnshire.
The social enterprise was founded in 2017 by Naomi Watkins-Ligudzinska and Alex Parkin after they found a lack of mental health provision in the local community. Naomi and Alex decided to create the Counselling Hub to fill those gaps, and they now support children, young people, adults, couples and families living in Lincolnshire.
NW Counselling Hub provides mental health support to people via referrals from GPs, crisis teams, drugs and alcohol services, NHS, and self-referral. Since the social enterprise was founded six years ago, it has supported more than 5,000 people, including 200 people a week currently with online and telephone sessions.
Naomi Watkins-Ligudzinska, CEO at NW Counselling Hub, said:
“[The funding] will enable us to continue our important work of providing mental health support to people in need, especially in these challenging times. We are grateful for the support and recognition of our work by Big Issue Invest, and we look forward to working together to make a positive impact on people’s lives.”
Big Issue Invest extends the Big Issue’s mission to dismantle poverty through creating opportunity. Since it was founded in 2005, it has provided £44 million in impact loans to more than 400 hundred social enterprises.
Michael Burns, Investment Manager at Big Issue Invest, said:
“Mental health support is more important than ever, and NW Counselling Hub is providing vital services to those in need. We believe in the social enterprise’s mission and are excited to see NW Counselling Hub grow from strength to strength and reach even more people.”
To find out more about Big Issue Invest, including how your organisation could receive similar support to NW Counselling Hub, please visit: https://www.bigissue.com/invest.
Find mental health support
If you are experiencing a mental health problem, or supporting someone who is, there’s lots of useful information and advice on mind.org.uk.
If you need to talk to someone about your problems, you may find an emotional support line helpful.
In the UK, you can call Samaritans on 116 123 – calls are free any time, from any phone. Lines are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can also email jo@samaritans.org or visit samaritans.org. Or you can text SHOUT to 85258.
If you live in the USA, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, and you can also contact the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741).