A NEW mental health service in the district has been welcomed by a Care Trust governor who has experienced his own struggles.

Mental health champion Nick Smith, who 30 years later is also running a peer support group in Keighley to help others find ways of coping with their issues, hopes Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust’s new Haven service will now do even more to stop people’s despair.

The 38-year-old’s own experience and ideas have helped shape the Haven initiative which will give people in crisis an alternative to having to go to A&E.

It was his suggestions and recommendations as a service user representative on the Haven steering group, that led to it having a café/lounge style environment at its Cellar Project base in Shipley as well as a calming Mindfulnesss room.

It will be open seven days a week from 10am to 6pm and will run alongside the Care Trust’s First Response service and the Sanctuary, a night-time mental health service open from 6pm at Mind in Bradford.

The Haven will be manned by staff and also volunteers, like Mr Smith, who have experience of their own mental health problems and people coming to it will be offered relaxation and mindfulness sessions, peer support groups and other therapies as well as get signposting to other services making people realise they are not on their own.

Mr Smith said: “When they then said that they wanted to set up a service for people in a crisis and that they wouldn’t need to go to A&E, because that’s where you usually go, I thought it was a brilliant idea.”

Mr Smith’s mental health issues began during a neglected childhood which he says drove him to want to end his own life when he was just nine.

At the age of 13 he was put into foster care when his mother was sent to prison for a stabbing, after that he developed an alcohol addiction and became a self-harmer eventually having a breakdown and spending time at Bradford’s Lynfield Mount mental health hospital. He became a public governor with the Care Trust last year.

His successful peer group which he has been running for two years as part of a Trust’s scheme meets every Thursday from 11am to 1pm at Central Hall in Keighley.

People in crisis can get in touch with Haven by calling 01274 221181.

To find out more about it, call 01274 321911.