NSUN is not a mental health service provider, or a provider of advocacy, casework, formal advice or legal support. You can find information about providers of these services below.
This page also brings together lots of other services, resources, and sources of information relating to mental health. We welcome your suggestions for resources to add – you can email suggestions to info@nsun.org.uk. Please bear in mind that we aim to only add free resources.
There is a lot out there in terms of services, resources, and user-led mental health groups. If you would like help with being signposted to the right place, get in touch with us at info@nsun.org.uk.
Please note that 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.
Mental health support & services
- The NHS’s main webpage with information on urgent support & access to therapies
- 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
Advice & advocacy services
Advice and information telephone lines:
- The Patients Association has a helpline for guidance around health and social care
- Mind have information and legal lines and Rethink have an advice and information line which can provide information and advice, including about rights, complaints, and advocacy
The following independent advocacy services provide access to advocates for people who are 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
Other services, resources, and support
Complaints and legal challenges about care/the NHS
- 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
Human rights and mental health related law
- 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“
- 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)
- Equality and Human Rights Commission
- The Equality Advisory and Support Service
See also: advice & advocacy services, above.
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.
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:
Support for user-led groups
- Our “resources for groups” page
- Shaping Our Lives resources for user-led groups page
- Digital toolkit and funder database: the Charity Excellence Framework
- Knowledge-base for charities, social enterprises and community groups: knowhow from NCVO
- The Edge Fund – resources page (help with fundraising, help with campaigning and organising)
- Money management information: The Social Change Agency
- VCSE support 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: Small Charities Coalition and Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI) – the SCC has now closed but is being supported by NCVO and FSI to continue their Helpdesk service. The FSI supports the UK’s small charity sector through advice and training in strategy, governance, fundraising and impact
- The Charity Commission provides templates on charitable constitutions
- Co-operatives UK provides model governing documents for co-ops
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 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.
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:
- Our 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
- 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
- LXP Revolution
- 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.
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