Community Mental Health Programmes and Volunteers

In the last issue of e-Volunteerism, volunteer Stephanie Myers wrote about her journey to start Mind for Athletes (M4A), an organization that helps recognize mental health issues among student athletes. e-Volunteerism has pledged to follow Myers’ efforts in future stories, but Myers’ experience immediately inspired Along the Web author Arnie Wickens to research projects around the world in which volunteers support people with mental health illnesses and related issues.

This Along the Web focuses on community mental health programmes, some of which are entirely run and led by volunteers, including volunteers who are current or past users of mental health support services themselves. While there are excellent volunteer services in mental health, not all reach out and involve people who have personal experience with such disability. So in this article, we feature those programmes that are explicitly for mental health service users and involve volunteers specifically for that purpose.