Find Support
Find safe, compassionate and empowering spaces, projects and support organisations for people experiencing mental and emotional distress - experiencers, and for those who support them - holders.
Online peer support groups
Safely Held Spaces (SHS) offers online peer support groups for family members and friends supporting people experiencing extreme mental and emotional distress, often diagnosed as psychosis.
These online groups provide regular safe, compassionate and empowering spaces where holders (parents, siblings, friends, partners) are able to express their own experiences and needs, and find support from those who have been, or are going through, similar experiences.
Our online groups aim to hold an expanded worldview - kind, open, curious, non-judgemental and accepting of uncertainty. We allow space for holders to expand and evolve their own ways of understanding extreme mental and emotional distress in dialogue with one another.
The groups are open-ended and free of charge, meet one evening per week online on zoom for 1.5 hours, and have 5-6 members. The peer group space is supported by a facilitator with therapeutic skills and their own lived experience as a holder.
If you would like to find out more, or to join a group please contact Joanna at info@safelyheldspaces.org
Hub of Hope
The Hub of Hope is the UK’s leading mental health signposting tool and lists local, national, peer, community, charity, private and NHS support and services for experiencers and holders. Since we all experience some kind of mental or emotional distress at some point in our lives, the Hub of Hope is really for all of us.
Safely Held Spaces has provided support for the development of the Hub of Hope, and has worked with the Hub of Hope team to try to ensure that the language used on the site is inclusive, so that all of us – no matter what we are experiencing, or how we see and understand our experiences – feel welcome.
We are keen to grow the Hub of Hope, so please click here to add mental health support and services that you know.
Further resources and support
Below you can find some of the compassionate and inspiring projects, events and organisations who we are working alongside to support and create change for people experiencing mental and emotional distress, and for the people supporting them.
A Disorder For Everyone
Challenging the culture of psychiatric diagnosis, exploring trauma informed alternatives
Dialogue First
Dialogue First is an Open Dialogue informed non-crisis community mental health service that accepts referrals from across the UK
ISPS UK
ISPS promotes psychological and social approaches to psychosis
Soteria Network
A network of people in the UK promoting the development of drug-free and minimum medication therapeutic environments for people experiencing ‘psychosis’ or extreme states
Working To Recovery
Providing a more holistic approach to recovery from 'psychosis'
CHARM
Communities for Holistic, Accessible and Rights-based mental health in Manchester
Emerging Proud
Reframing Mental distress as a transformation process
Mad In The UK
Fundamentally re-thinking UK mental health practice and promoting positive change
Spiritual Crisis Network
Email support and online forum for information on spiritual crisis
Compassionate Mental Health
Transforming the way we live and work with mental health crises and distress
Hearing Voices Network
A peer support group for people who hear voices, see visions or have other unusual sensory experiences
Soteria London
Creating compassionate alternatives in London for people in crisis and distress and to establish alternative housing for inpatient care
Voice Collective
UK-wide, London-based project that supports children and young people up to 25 years old who hear voices, see visions, have other ‘unusual’ sensory experiences or beliefs, and the people that support them.