A support group which helps men struggling with their mental health says a £114,136 grant from the Community Match Challenge Fund will save lives.

JourneyMEN is the brainchild of former Wirral policeman Phil Roberts and officially opened its doors on April 7, 2020.

It was during his work as a policeman that he realised there was a huge gap in provision for men in mental distress, which often had tragic consequences.

The Birkenhead-based group provides an early intervention service and a ‘one stop shop’ to support men’s mental health.

Services and activities provided include weekly ‘walk & talk’ sessions around Hamilton Square Gardens in Birkenhead, sea fishing trips at our historic River Mersey and ‘floating counselling’ on board the Potential narrowboat along the Shropshire Union Canal.

The £114,136 grant from the Community Match Challenge Fund will be used to cover their core costs to enable them to continue growing their case load.

Radio host Pauline Daniels (pictured) recently become the lates JourneyMEN ambassador. 

Press officer Harry Leahey said: “The grant will increase JourneyMEN’s ability to provide an ambitious service that will make a real difference in the community.  It helps us in our intervention work, saving lives and improving wellbeing and overall life chances.

“To date, we have responded to some 160 men across the region needing our help. The fund enables us to continue that help to them and their families as well as expanding such support to more men each month.

“Our physical office presence continues to be maintained throughout, and we deploy all means of digital and telephone communications to ensure that ‘our men’ still have their weekly contact with one of our workers.  

“As more agencies closed their doors both during the first and in the run up to the current lockdown, we find more men and their families are turning to us for support. In October alone we had a spike in the number of men registering with us and we anticipate much the same in November.”