One of the things we’ve been noticing over time in our work is that there are individuals who just keep falling through the cracks.
Maybe these individuals don’t need urgent interventions but they may need ongoing support that Health or Community services don’t currently offer. Maybe their lives have chipped away at their resilience and they are hurt or defended as a result - making them harder to work with. Maybe they experience issues due to poor housing, low income, difficult cultures or just from living in the wrong part of town that makes it very difficult to provide specific, contextual care for them.
This is often where Space to Breathe can help as we can be flexible because we’re small - we can adapt our support to meet these challenging needs. Throughout 2022 we’ve seen these situations develop and been able to provide support.
This year we’ve worked with people like P who fall has fallen down the cracks in the system but is benefitting from ongoing relational support, a computer to use on extended loan to help process his thoughts into words and ongoing wellbeing support that I’m providing him. P feels that Space to Breathe has genuinely helped him turn a corner and now he wants to put efforts into helping others through his experiences.
We’ve also been able to help S who was discharged from mental health services because he was ‘low risk’ yet has continually being spiralling back into and then out of mental health care. I’ve been able to meet him weekly, settle him and teach him simple skills to keep his life in balance. I’ve been meeting with S for a while now and it’ll be a long road back but it’s been encouraging to begin to see fruit from long term connections. He recently texted me saying “thank you for all you do for me, and for other people in need in Sheffield."
Lastly we’ve also been able to support W - a victim of crime who was left with a number of wellbeing struggles after the event. She needed some flexible and adaptable wellbeing support that enabled her to consider what help she might need in the long term.
In reality, we’ve found these kind of situations don’t often get funded, and there is no obvious public sector help available and this doesn’t make for an easy grant application. Instead we’ve been trying to give time to and focus on these three individuals - to be a steady support and realise that whatever we can do will be a help that may lead to further positive steps. It’s a long road but it feels important. As we reach the end of 2022 we are going to try and focus these ‘through the cracks’ stories into a campaign and try to raise further funds to help them.
I wanted to reach out to you and to ask if you might consider helping us with a financial gift to support individuals like P, S and W and others we are working with.
We are seeking to try and raise £5K over the end of 2022 and into 2023 which we want to dedicate towards this work. As you’ll see from the link below we are looking for smaller and larger gifts but we also want you to feel free to simple share with others or to do nothing in response at all. We’re aware it’s a difficult time and so please only respond if you want to. The link to donate is below.
Here at Space to Breathe we are so grateful for people like you who’ve continually helped us in our journey. We wouldn’t be here without your help and all you do we want to express all of our thanks. If this campaign strikes a cord with you, do respond or share. If that’s not something you’re able to do, we still love to hear your thoughts and do remember you can volunteer with us too.
Thanks for reading.