We provide a lifeline for caregivers – parents, family members, friends, or colleagues (18+) supporting someone of any age with their mental health or emotional wellbeing.
Different types of support available at Parental Minds:
- Peer Support: Our services are rooted in families’ experiences, professional expertise, and a deep understanding of the challenges caregivers face. We provide a compassionate, non-judgemental space where parents and caregivers feel supported, empowered, and connected. Our peer support includes:
- Drop in Hubs (face to face and virtual)
- Phone calls and WhatsApp messaging (for those in Eastern Devon)
- WhatsApp Groups
- Monthly email updates
- Daily Facebook posts and private forums
- Monthly online skills workshops
- Mentoring: Our mentoring services provide tailored, one-to-one guidance that helps caregivers and practitioners navigate the complex landscape of mental health and emotional wellbeing. Mentoring sessions are personalised to address the unique challenges faced by caregivers, enabling them to build confidence and develop practical coping strategies. Our mentors, who bring their experience and professional insight, foster non-judgemental and supportive relationships, ensuring caregivers feel understood and valued. Through mentoring, participants gain essential tools and resources to effectively support their loved ones while prioritising their self-care.
- Parental Minds Counselling: offers an affordable, open-ended counselling service. Counselling, or talking therapy, is an opportunity to speak to someone about how you are feeling. Over the course of your counselling sessions your therapist will help you to find your own way of making changes in your life, to identify your strengths and to help you find new ways of dealing with any difficulties. You can find out more about our counselling service, and counselling team, here.
- Listening calls: Listening calls are a space for parents and caregivers to talk, and be listened to. A space to offload and talk about whatever is on your mind. Calls are pre-arranged and could be weekly, or ‘as and when’ – whatever is decided between yourself and your listener. Your listener will be impartial and not judge you. They are not counsellors and will not give advice or try to ‘fix’ things. They may signpost you to someone else if they think it might be helpful. If you’re interested in having listening calls please let your Peer Support Worker know.
- Parental Minds Hubs: Our hubs are welcoming spaces where caregivers connect, share insights, and strengthen their knowledge and resilience. We empower families to provide support while prioritising their own self-care. The Parental Minds Support Hub is for Caregivers who support family, friends or colleagues struggling with their emotional wellbeing.
Our trained peer support workers draw on their own and other’s experiences to come alongside you with tailored one to one support. Our volunteers have all supported family & friends with emotional wellbeing issues. We also have an advisory board of professionals and work closely with local and national mental health services and networks.
A peer-support model is highly powerful in this area. Lived experience often speaks with more authority to people in crisis (and more generally suffering) than professional input, which can at times feel impersonal, invalidating, conflicted and can even be experienced as harmful in some instances.
Parental Minds CIC provides this, based on lived experience along with making use of research and professional guidance to provide effective, safe and most importantly, empowering support for parent-carers.
Dr D Starley
Who are care givers?
Mental Health Caregivers are a family member, friend or colleague (18+ years) that is supporting someone (of any age) with mental health issues.
Parental Minds Support Hub
The Parental Minds Support Hub meetings are informal, café-style sessions. The hub is designed to create a space for the caregiver, we share hints and tips and it is somewhere to be ‘heard’ in a relaxed environment. We have a large number of peer support volunteers, so when people come to the group, you can never be too sure who is there seeking support and who is there to provide support. Everyone can share as much or as little as they like. Those who are nervous about ‘being seen’ at the group, can join as a volunteer member.
The Parental Minds Support Hub is somewhere we can support each other and share information, allowing us to grow in strength and knowledge; so that we are all better equipped to give the best possible support to our families and take care of ourselves.
Check out our events on the news page for the latest session dates.
What is said in the Hub, stays in the Hub
The Parental Minds Support Hub meetings are facilitated by Peer Support Volunteers and we invite various professionals and local services to join us.
The meeting format is as follows:
- Time to chat with other Parents/Caregivers
- Group discussions around Self-Care or Mental Health Information
- Question time (anonymous if you prefer)
- Ending with ‘tip of the week’
To sign up for a Parental Minds Support Meeting, or skill workshop, get in touch.
Bespoke Support Plans for Mental Health Caregivers
As part of our bespoke support services, we offer:
- Emotional support for parents/care givers
- Information on mental health issues
- Educational needs
- Financial needs
- Resources
- Sharing insights on relevant services
Resources
Parental Minds resources are the foundations of the support we deliver through Parental Minds Support Hub. Each resource is the result of a question being asked to Parental Minds or through Parental Minds Support Hub. Our resources are shaped by families’ experiences and supported by the insights of researchers and professionals.
Sharing Parental Voices
Sharing Parental Voices in the research and development of local and national services; with a particular interest in those who use risky behaviour to tolerate distress.
We share opportunities for you to share your own experience. Some Caregivers find it therapeutic to join ‘participation’ groups. We share these opportunities through our newsletters and social media. We also take themes from our Parental Minds members to local and national research projects.
You were a lifeline when I was drowning and had no one to talk to that could understand. It was a huge relief to connect with others experiencing the same difficulties via the WhatsApp group. It was a way to unburden without having to explain. I don’t feel alone as I know if things go ‘wrong’ again, I have support to get through the crisis.
From a parent we support
Support Parental Minds – Exeter Community Lottery
We are thrilled to announce the grand launch of The Exeter Community Lottery! If any of our incredible families or their friends are considering participating, we kindly request that you obtain your tickets via our page. Parental Minds services are for those who are supporting their child, family or friend’s mental wellbeing. Every single ticket purchased through our dedicated page will play a pivotal role in enabling Parental Minds to expand our reach and enhance our essential services. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to you, and may luck be on your side in the forthcoming draw!
Buy your tickets via our direct link: https://www.exetercommunitylottery.co.uk/support/parental-mind-cic
Please share with your friends, family, colleagues and connections and encourage them to support us!