Being Alongside is a Christian-based charity recognising the importance of spiritual values and support in mental health.
We aim to support faith groups and local communities in the following ways:
- Arranging day courses focusing on mental health
- Supplying resource packs for setting up schemes
- Suggesting speakers for church and other groups
- Assisting in training courses for volunteers
Mental distress can affect us all
We all know what it is to feel worried sad, upset or anxious and sometimes to be confused and forgetful. Mental health problems are an intensification of these very normal feelings which can dramatically interfere with day to day living. In the more serious cases a person can lose touch with reality altogether. Though the causes are not fully understood many setbacks appear to result from traumatic events in people’s lives. It is estimated that up to a quarter of the adult population are affected in any one year.
“If you enter into relationship with a lonely or suffering person you will discover something else: that it is you who are being healed. The broken person will reveal to you your own hurt and the hardness of your heart, but also how much you are loved. Thus the one you came to heal becomes your healer.”
Jean Vanier, from ‘The Broken Body’, 1988