NSUN is not a mental health service/support provider. We also do not have the resource/expertise to provide advocacy and formal advice or individual casework and legal support. You can find information about providers of these services below.
This page also lists lots of other services, resources, and sources of information and support on a range of mental health related topics (including information on other user-led mental health groups).
If you would like help with being signposted to the right place, or if you have suggestions for resources to add (please note that we aim to only add free to access resources), get in touch with us at info@nsun.org.uk.
The listing of an organisation or resource on this page is not an endorsement. All links are external and NSUN is not responsible for their content.
In order, this page contains the following sections:
- Mental health support & services
- Advice & advocacy services
- Other services, resources & support (including drop-downs containing information around complaints about care, human rights and legal advice, benefits, support for user-led groups, and information on involvement/co-production)
- Other user-led groups doing e.g. campaigning or peer support (including those focussing on lived experience workers)
1. Mental health support & services
- The NHS’s webpage on mental health services, including urgent support
- Mental health service signposting pages: Mind, Diversity and Ability & Helplines Partnership
- Hub of Hope’s directory of support services and groups
- Asylum Magazine’s list of resources/sources of practical support
- Rethink’s signposting page for local support groups, services, and telephone advisors
- Self-injury Support’s list of groups/services providing support on self-injury
- The Hearing Voices Network’s directory of Hearing Voices Groups
- User-led group First Do No Harm have a guide on support for current inpatients
2. Advice & advocacy services
Advice/information services:
- The Patients Association helpline for guidance around health and social care
- Mind’s information and legal lines and Rethink’s advice and information line provide information and advice about rights, complaints, advocacy etc
- AdviceUK’s Directory of local advice centres
- Citizens Advice
- Please use the drop down menu in section 3 to explore more services
Advocacy services providing access to advocates for people detained under the Mental Health Act:
- VoiceAbility
- POhWER
- The Advocacy People
- If you are in South London, you may want to contact user-led advocacy group CSNSL
3. Other services, resources & support
Complaints/legal challenges about care
- Concerns about NHS care – NHS information webpage
- The Patient Advice and Liaison Service deals with issues with NHS care
- Complain about the use of the Mental Health Act (via the Care Quality Commission)
- Mind have an area of their website called legal rights, which contains a section on complaining about health and social care
- For information on making legal challenges (this is different to making a complaint): Mind’s legal challenge page and Rethink’s rights and restrictions website section which includes information on complaints and legal challenges such as clinical negligence claims
- For information on the mental health system and accountability, user-led group First Do No Harm have a guide on the system and where accountability lies
- INQUEST, a charity providing casework around the investigation of state related deaths (including in mental health settings), can be contacted via their website. They also provide a directory of other sources of advice and support in related areas
- Some local Law Centres may be able to help with problems around care
See also: “Human rights/mental health related law and legal advice” (drop down menu below).
Human rights/mental health related law and legal advice
- Mind’s Legal Line for legal information and advice on mental health related law – and/or the legal rights section of their website
- Rethink’s rights and restrictions section of their website, including “NHS treatment – your rights“
- Liberty’s Advice and Information section of their website and their “I need a lawyer” page
- Local Law Centres
- Equality and Human Rights Commission
- The Equality Advisory and Support Service
- British Institute of Human Rights resources: Changing Mental Health Law, The Right to Life, Embedding Human Rights in Mental Health Services: A Tool For Staff, and the CAMHS project resources (guide to rights in CAMHS)
See also: “Complaints/legal challenges about care” (drop down menu above).
Help with finance, welfare claims or appeals, and benefits
- Rethink’s money, benefits, and mental health page
- Mind’s claiming benefits information page
- Citizens Advice
- Scope’s advice and support hub
- Money and Mental Health Policy Institute
- Mental Health and Money Advice
- How to win a PIP appeal
- WCA info: help for advisers assisting people to make a new claim for benefit on the basis of their incapacity for work, and in challenging decisions to refuse, or award a lower rate of, the benefit
- Diversity and Ability’s Access to Work guide (AtW is a grant that funds practical support to help people start work, stay in work, or move into self-employment)
- Diversity and Ability’s Disabled Student Allowance grant guide
- Turn2Us support including Benefits Calculator and financial support Grant Calculator – you can use the benefits calculator below:
Healthcare/mental healthcare groups and forums
- Mental Health Forum (peer support forum)
- The Independent Mental Health Network and their local branches around Manchester and Bristol
- Care Opinion
- Health Talk Online
- Mind’s Side By Side Forum
- Health Boards
- Survivor History Group
- The Patient Experience Library – project that brings together the whole of the UK’s qualitative literature on patient experience
- Spokz People Community & Wellbeing Programme: aims to enable more disabled people to access disability-affirming psychological support. Please note that their membership fee is £50 a year or £5 a month, but they offer a 30 day free trial and membership grants available for people who need them.
Support for user-led groups
- Our “resources for groups” page
- Shaping Our Lives’ resources for user-led groups page
- Disability Rights UK’s resources for Disabled People’s Organisations page
- Digital toolkit and funder database: the Charity Excellence Framework
- Knowledge-base for charities, social enterprises and community groups: Knowhow from NCVO
- Help with fundraising, campaigning and organising: the Edge Fund’s resources page
- Money management information: The Social Change Agency
- VCSE support/infrastructure organisations tend to exist regionally, e.g. Manchester Community Central which provides resources, templates and toolkits on issues such as governance, finance, safeguarding and GDPR. Local CVS (Council for Voluntary Services) organisations may also be of use. You can find local infrastructure organisations via NAVCA’s website
- For small charities, relating to advice around strategy, governance, fundraising etc: Small Charities Coalition & Foundation for Social Improvement
- Template charitable constitutions: The Charity Commission webpage
- Model governing documents for co-ops: Co-operatives UK webpage
Groups that do mental health ward inpatient visits (London)
We would really like to add to this list and expand it beyond London. Please contact us if you know of any other groups doing this type of work.
Resources on “service user involvement” and co-production
If you are looking for resources, information and publications on service user involvement and co-production, including information and guidance about the implications on benefits of paid involvement work, visit our “Service Involvement & Influencing” page. If you are an organisation looking to do involvement and co-production, and are looking for help in setting this up, running it, or evaluating it, we recommend the services of user-led organisation Shaping Our Lives.
4. Other community/user-led mental health organisations and DPOs
User-led groups and Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) may carry out a wide range of activities such as campaigning, providing services such as peer support and mutual aid, and carrying out research. Here are some examples of groups in our network:
- NSUN’s hosted projects, Synergi, misery and North East Together
- Shaping Our Lives
- MadCovid
- First Do No Harm
- Adira
- Leeds Survivor-Led Crisis Service
- Recovery In The Bin
- Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People
- Mental Health Liberation Network
- Hearing Voices Network
- Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living
- Voice Collective
- Taraki
- Make Space
- Self-injury Support
- Independent Mental Health Network (local branches in South West)
- Wish
- Survivor Researcher Network
- Disabled People Against Cuts
- Campaign for Psychiatric Abolition
- Changes Bristol
- Expert by Experience
- Shaping Our Lives also have a directory of user-led organisations and user groups
- You can also find a map of DPOs (Disabled Peoples’ Organisations) here
- If you are in the US, you might want to have a look at Project LETS.
The following lived-experience-led groups work specifically on support around workforce “Lived Experience Leadership” (i.e. for people working in lived experience/peer roles in organisations such as the NHS). They may be useful for both “Lived Experience Leaders” and organisations that have and recruit for “Lived Experience Leadership” roles.
There are lots of other organisations (which may or may not be user-led) working and campaigning in what get called “critical” or “alternative” mental health spaces in the UK, some of which are listed below:
- Asylum Magazine
- Communities for Holistic, Accessible, Rights Based Mental Health (CHARM), Manchester
- Soteria Network UK
- Critical and Creative Approaches to Mental Health Practice (CCrAMHP), Lancaster
- Compassionate Mental Health
- Mad in the UK
- International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis UK
- Spiritual Crisis Network