Blackpool Inspirations is a grass-roots, user-led organisation, run by and for people with mental health challenges. All the trustees have first-hand experience of mental health challenges and as Blackpool residents have experienced local mental health services. We created Inspirations in 2015 when funding was pulled for a Richmond Fellowship service called Cornerstone. The people who attended Cornerstone were very upset when it was due to end because they felt real benefit to their mental health and in a reduction of the isolation they felt. Blackpool Inspirations carried on the existing community based drop ins and created new ones with no funding and no statutory support. 

Since then we have obtained Lottery funding to help us increase the support we provide. We also now work in partnership with local NHS and social care colleagues to ensure a more joined up approach.

 Our drop ins are focussed around social groups and peers support with some activities such as an art group. In response to members’ stated wishes we have grown beyond what Cornerstone offered and now have an in house counsellor to compliment the peer support. We have trips out to various locations around the country including Liverpool and the Lake district (no small thing for our members, some of whom struggle to leave the house, are subject to stigma and discrimination regularly, and suffer such experiences as paranoia, hallucinations and emotional dysregulation). We have feedback from people to evidence that our support gives structure to their lives, gives them “a reason to get out of bed”, and has prevented suicide attempts and presentations at hospital.   Currently over 100 people regularly attend our drop-ins.

 We also provide ad hoc telephone support (through outgoing calls to those we know are distressed/suicidal offering support. The act of contacting them also lets them know they are valued and their pain matters.) People can also ring us. We are a truly preventative organisation. We are also truly inclusive. The trustees do not decide the direction of Blackpool Inspirations; we carry out consultations with our members. We ask the people what is working, what they would like to change and what they would like us to become/offer in the future.   We also collect people’s narratives to help assess our impact.