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Time To Talk Initiative Encouraging Conversation About Mental Health Today

Today (February 3) marks a national initiative to encourage conversations about mental health.

Time to Talk Day aims to bring friends, families, communities, and workplaces together to talk, listen and to help change lives.

The annual event was created to work towards ending mental health discrimination. 

The Isle of Wight NHS Trust has a team of 11 Lived Experience Peer Support Workers whose role is to help support patients by encouraging them to talk about their mental health.

Catherine Hammond, peer support worker, said:

“In my role as a Peer Support Worker I spend nearly all of my time listening and talking with the people I work with.

"We help each other to progress on our mental health journeys by working alongside one another, to make goals and plans for the future.

"Some days I listen and talk to so many different people that I can come home exhausted, but extremely happy — it's my dream job!”

For people struggling with mental health, the Isle of Wight NHS Trust’s Isle Talk self-referral service offer cognitive behavioural therapies to support people experiencing stress, anxiety and mild depression.

They also offer a number of free workshops which aim to provide strategies to help manage these conditions and to maintain wellness.

You do not need a GP referral to access IAPT services, you can self-refer to Isle Talk IAPT by calling 532860.

You will then be booked in for a telephone assessment, and then onto the course, if it is appropriate to meet your needs.

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