"A brilliant service"

I have been receiving care from the Newark and Sherwood Adult Mental Health Team, including the employment support part of the Team.

My CPN Dawn has been really lovely. She has listened to me on occasions when I have had no-one else to talk to, and this has made a huge difference to me.  

I have also had support from Ayshea, an Employment Specialist in the Mental Health Team. Dawn and Ayshea have worked brilliantly together to support me and I think that having employment help as part of the mental health service is just brilliant. I think there needs to be much more things like this for people with mental health difficulties. When you have mental health problems like I do, it is really hard to open up and talk to people - I always used to put a barrier up and didn't want to talk to people. But with Dawn and Ayshea I have always felt comfortable to open up and talk to them, and I feel like they really listen and do their best to help me. And if there are problems that they can't help with, they have referred me to other sources of support.

My work was one of the things that was making me ill, I was having real problems with my employer and was desperately unhappy. One day Ayshea went into my work and spoke with my manager and my life changed from that minute. The manager called me into his office and really listened to what I needed, to be able to do my job, and took the time to get to know me. After this point my time at work was completely different. 

Unfortunately I have since had to give my job up because of my health getting bad again. Ayshea has helped me to find out about what types of support are available to me since giving up work, and although I have been discharged from the employment service now, I hope to work with Ayshea again in a few months when my health is better, and find a new part time job that I can do.