Update: Mental Health Resource Project

Throughout the year, our own intelligence highlighted how difficult it can be for people to access the right support at the right time, and how unclear it often is to understand the difference between services, pathways, and levels of support available.

Why We Have Not Delivered This Resource Ourselves

During the early stages of exploring this work, we identified that Teesside Mind were already developing a similar piece of work, with specialist expertise and the capacity to take this forward at scale. Rather than duplicate efforts, we made the decision to support and influence their project, ensuring that the insights we had gathered through lived experience played a meaningful role in shaping the direction.

This collaboration offered a number of benefits:

✔ We strengthened their project with local insight

Our contributions helped highlight just how confusing people find the current mental health system and the need for a clearer, more user-friendly way to understand what support exists.

✔ We influenced a shift away from a basic directory

Communities told us they didn’t need another list of services — they needed something that explains:

• what different types of mental health support do,
• who they are for,
• when they should be used,
• and how to access them.

This approach better reflects what people across South Tees say they need.

✔ The work is now with the organisation best equipped to deliver it

Teesside Mind have the specialist mental health knowledge, infrastructure and long-term capacity to develop a resource that truly meets local needs.

We are confident this approach will have greater impact for residents than if we had produced a separate resource ourselves.