(Save) Mental Health Swims
We’re thrilled to announce that over the Autumn we will be supporting Mental Health Swims. 10% of profits from all our UK courses, products, and 1:1 sessions. will go towards supporting this multi-award-winning mental health peer support community.
Founder Rachel Ashe talked to us about what Mental Health Swims is and why your support is so needed right now:
This Photo: Gabriel Redd Photography | Header Photo: Mike French Creative
Who we are
Mental Health Swims is a mental health peer support community. Since 2019 we have grown to have around 140 outdoor locations across the UK and beyond.
In the last couple of years, we have trained 350 volunteers to create safe and welcoming spaces for over 15,000 people who want to improve their mental health and make connections in their community through swimming.
Why we are unique
We have a unique offering because we are led by lived experience. I have a complex mental illness myself. All our volunteers and our team have lived experience of mental health challenges either personally or through supporting someone close to them.
We focus on accepting people as they are today with no expectation for transformation. It’s not that our participants don’t experience amazing benefits to their well-being but we want to foster an environment where no one feels pressure to be anything but themselves. We want to make it as easy as possible for people living with mental illness to join in, to feel accepted and included and ultimately fight mental illness stigma by doing this.
Why we are needed
Mental Health peer support groups are needed to take pressure off the NHS
It offers support which is not time-limited
It’s complimentary to existing care
There are also pathways for improvement - if you decide to train as a swim host you can build new skills which is confidence building and empowering.
Cost-effective
Our funding model means we can onboard a new swim host who can provide this service to a new location and its community in under a month; we won a Mind Charity Marsh award for innovative peer support because of this approach.
Why we need your help
Times are really tough for lots of charities and CICs at the moment and sadly some of them have had to close.
We really don’t want that to happen to Mental Health Swims because we support tens of thousands of people every year.
Photo: Gabriel Redd Photography
To learn more about Mental Health Swims you can read our interview with Rachel here.
Mental Health Swims free, safe and inclusive swim meet-ups are now Nationwide. You can search their map on the website to discover the closest one to you.
You can support Mental Health Swims directly through supporting their crowdsourcing campaign, and/or with any session booked, course attended, or product purchased through us.
Photo: Gabriel Redd Photography
