Tonic Health in Spalding to open Night Light Cafe in mental health boost
An innovative scheme will provide a fresh way to tackle mental health struggles.
Spalding will soon play host to a Night Light Cafe, which will be set up and run by Tonic Health’s Safe Places team at its Broadgate House facilities in town.
The cafe will offer out-of-hours, non-clinical support for anyone suffering mentally, with an aim of simultaneously relieving pressure on emergency services and A&E departments.
Anyone who goes along will, if they wish, be offered advice on any clinical support they may want to utilise.
Laura Stevens, a Safe Places project worker at Tonic Health, said: “It will be an environment where people will be welcomed in, cared for and listened to.
“It’s a drop-in cafe so they don’t have to book, they can just come along.
“It’s a place where people can feel safe.”
Set to open on January 31, Spalding’s cafe will join similar set-ups in Lincoln and Grantham which have been organised by the Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
It will be open on Mondays and Thursdays from 4-7pm.
Visitors will be able to have a chat, read a newspaper or book and make use of art materials that will be provided.
“It’s hugely important. Unfortunately we don’t have a massive amount of mental health facilities in the area, so it’s somewhere people can go into a non-judgemental environment,” Miss Stevens added.
“Obviously there is still a stigma around mental health. So if people don’t want to talk about mental health, they don’t have to.
“It’s just about getting people back into the community and creating friendships, because wellness starts with meeting other people.
“Spalding is quite a small area, so there aren’t too many places people can go where they’d feel comfortable.
“People sometimes can’t go to family members, some families don’t have that support system in place.
“So it’s really important for them to know we are interested and will listen.”
Victoria Sleight, head of CMH Transformation at Lincolnshire NHS, said: “We know that sometimes A&E departments can’t always provide the calming, therapeutic environment for people in crisis, and Lincolnshire will be leading the way as one of just a handful of trusts nationally trialling this service.
“Our aim is to enable people to access support and get the care they need at the point they need it.”