Watch this space because we are launching a new Good Mood Cafe in South Lincolnshire. Working in partnership with local charity Boxes of Hope, the Holbeach Good Mood Cafe our aim is to connect individuals in the community and provide valuable mental health support.

These wellbeing services in Lincolnshire create an opportunity to meet new people to share interests, skills, and wellbeing tips in an informal space to help boost your mood. With a variety of sessions held every week across different locations, there are plenty of opportunities for you to come down and get involved with the local groups.

We are working in partnership with the NHS to provide a Night Light Cafe in Long Sutton. This initiative provides a local, safe space for anyone experiencing mental health crisis, providing a listening ear during the evening.

The Night Light Cafe is held on Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 5pm–9pm in the welcome area at St Mary’s Church Hall.

We are also looking for experienced volunteers to come along and provide support at our Long Sutton Night Life Cafes. As a host you will be welcoming visitors and provide a listening ear to people who are struggling with their mental health.

Boston in South Lincolnshire has experienced significant immigration, particularly from European countries.

This has raised the importance for the Boston Primary Care Network to understand and address local health inequalities that exist. They aim to identify the specific challenges people are experiencing with their mental and physical health, the barriers to accessing health and social care support, and how they need to develop services that are more responsive for this population.

To address health inequalities a CPSL Mind Project Lead and team of Peer Designers have worked alongside organisations and services in Boston to produce eight key recommendations included in a final report which explored the following:

• Individuals understanding of accessing services & support
• Current community assets
• Issues/barriers to accessing support
• Gaps in service/support provision

Peer designers is the title given to those people who were trained and paid to have conversations with people within their own community. Being from the Lithuanian and Bulgarian community, the 5 Peer Designers had migrated from either Lithuania or Bulgaria and were part of the Lithuanian and Bulgarian communities in Boston.

This meant that the responses we obtained as part of the conversations around mental health and accessing mental health support could be had using the person’s native tongue. In addition, trust was easier to establish for the Peer Designers, with a shared knowledge of some of the challenges that migration can pose.