Hello I’m Natalie from the Support, Time and Recovery team (STaR) here at Mid and North East Essex Mind. I work alongside the therapists from Health in Mind to provide practical support for people who are experiencing mild to moderate mental health problems.
The STaRs work fairly short term with our clients but the beauty is people can come back should they need further support. Our team can be hugely helpful for those who have gone into avoidance and finding difficulty in things such as making phone calls, attending meetings, being involved in the wider community or even just deciding what needs doing and how to go about it.
We aim to explore your problems and worries, and between us we will work out a plan and see how best we can support you. We work in a person centred way and respect that each individual is unique and have different needs as well as a different pace.
We offer encouragement, motivation, empowerment, information, we also signpost and sometimes refer into other organisations and support people to access exactly what they need to access. Sometimes we realise it may not be the right time and in such situations will agree to close the case and encourage people to come back when ready; this can alleviate any pressure people may feel.
We work on the premise that each person is the expert in who they are and what they need, and there is no judgement in terms of how long it will take a person to fulfil their goal, or indeed what their goal actually is.
Due to the ever growing isolated population within our society, which touches all ages, we recently set up a STaR friendship and support group. This group takes place on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at the Minories café 74 High Street, Colchester at 2pm until 4pm. We would love to offer a warm welcome to anyone who would like to come along and it doesn’t matter if you are being supported by our service or not. It is for anyone who is feeling lonely, isolated, anxious or low in mood and wishing to meet other like-minded people. You will find us to the left as you go into the Minories Café. The numbers vary from 12 to 3 and each group is slightly different depending on who attends, but there is always compassion and light laughter. For more information please contact Mid and North East Essex Mind on 01206 764600. We look forward to seeing you there!
Natalie
