When Suzanne’s 14-year-old daughter Issy, became suicidal in 2015, she and her family were thrown into a dark, frightening, and isolated place. All support was rightly focused on Issy, but Suzanne knew, that as a parent, she had a vital role to play in guiding her daughter and her family through the experience and challenges they faced. Yet, she needed more support to get through and there was nothing!

One night, on suicide watch when all attempts to reach out to organisations and services failed, Suzanne decided she would make it her mission to ensure that no other parent felt as alone or isolated as she did. And so, Parenting Mental Health was born. 

What started with Suzanne pressing ‘create group’ on Facebook, saw 300 new members join almost immediately, in 6 years, it has more than 33,000 members all over the world, sharing their journey and benefiting from each other’s lived experience, knowledge and care.

The Facebook group grew into a charity (of which I’m proud to be CEO ) which offers additional services including access to Suzanne’s Book, ‘Never Let Go, How to Parent Your Child Through Mental Illness’. Non-clinical support services including Chat and Connect, Listening Circles and Daily Gratitude Posts. Information including self-help guides as well as our Partnering not Parenting course which gives parents vital tools to cope. We also offer a range of sub-groups including those for specific needs, such as Dads, LGBTQIA or In-Patients, as well as hobby based groups like Food, Christmas or Book Club to help limit the isolation parents often feel.

Parenting Mental Health currently ensures 33,000 parents get  instant care and support the moment they need it, day or night…but the challenge is huge, when 2/3 children have a diagnosable mental health issue there’s so many more parents we need to reach, funds are essential to let us do that safely and well (the mental health systems all over the world are too stretched and broken for us to get this wrong). 

We need computers, volunteer training, counselling, systems, safeguarding, respite, volunteer support, admin, mentors, fundraisers, time to develop more guides, information, the ability to collate all the sporadic services so parents can find information quickly and easily, we need knowledge on subjects as wide ranging as exam anxiety to self harm and suicide…

But above all we need to ensure there’s ALWAYS someone on the other side of the screen at 3am when you think you’re the only one and your child isn’t going to make it through this. 

Just a few pounds really does go a long way for us…thank you for your help. ♥️