Mum's call for funding help to get new mental health service off the ground

Paula Slater, who led a £1.1m fundraising campaign in memory of her late daughter Katy Holmes, has joined forces with Craig Bushell and

Sandra Connolly to form The South Ribble Wellbeing Trust (SRWT).

CLICK here to donate to The South Ribble Wellbeing Trust

CLICK here to read what Paula and her family did to mark 10 years since Katy died

Paula said: "In my own community of Penwortham we have been rocked by suicides of young people, and you hear about police officers stopping traffic on the bridge because people are up there. "I wanted to reach out to these people."

She said "the stars aligned" when Sandra and Craig approached her with the same idea, knowing that one in four people are experiencing mental health issues each year, costing the NHS £105 billion annually.

What's it all about?

The idea of SRWT is to bridge the gap between being assessed as needing mental health help, and accessing it.

Paula, who has more than 20 years of experience working with children and family mental health and now runs My Psychological Wellness in Penwortham, said: "For some people, it can take 18 months to access the help they need on the NHS.

"Many people can't afford to go private, so they are left without any guidance to deal with their problems alone.

"Through our website, we aim to signpost people to help while they are waiting, and will pay for the right practitioners to help."

She added: “I promised myself, as a child, that I would do anything possible to help anyone with their mental health and wellbeing. Launching this Trust with Sandra and Craig is making that dream a reality. From one human being to another, we must pull together to help each other. It shouldn’t just be left to the NHS, and not everyone can afford to go private, so this is how we can help.”

How it will work?

Paula and her team have assembled a group of paramedics to review request for help forms on their website, and have lined up a group of practitioners from councillors , psychotherapists and even gym packages,

The paramedics will assess the needs of the person and line them up with the right course of action.

So what's the problem?

To do all this costs money, and SRWT need to have raised £5,000 to apply for a Charity Commission Number.

Once that is achieved, they will then be able to apply for National Lottery grants and for help from businesses.

Paula said: "We've had 34 people contact us for help in the past two weeks, and it's heartbreaking that we can't help them at this point."

She added: "But once we have a charity number, we have looked at the average cost of practiciioners and we think that £5,000 can cover the costs of about 80-100 counselling sessions.

"Of course not everybody will need counselling. Some people will be better with a six week gym programme.

"There's lots of ways of helping people, and we don't want to replace the NHS service, but work with it."