STUFF have been providing mental well-being support in Stockport since 1999 and became a registered charity in 2018.

What do we normally do? We provide mental health support for people in the Stockport area who are suffering and recovering from a range of mental health problems. We offer a range of social, therapeutic, leisure, volunteering opportunities/activities that take place in mental health community settings and throughout the wider community recognising individuality. We support people on their recovery journey whose ages range between 18 and with our oldest member being 90.

What do we currently do? We are currently experiencing increased referrals asking for support due to self-isolation of many of our service users being in the high-risk group. Closure of Stockport's only mental health day centre where people usually go for daily support are unable to meet there due to current government restrictions – we are currently one of the few points of contact for many people. We have removed ourselves from our base within the mental health unit at Stepping Hill Hospital and have redeployed all of our volunteers into outward facing community support which includes shopping, collecting prescriptions, dropping off Foodbank vouchers (sticking by government guidelines of distance).

We are in phone and text contact weekly with members and for those we feel are most in need, there is daily contact as their usual community drop-in support is currently closed.

We are also offering support for those who are on pre-payment gas/ electric meters that have stopped working and/ or are struggling to get out to top up. Usage has gone up with the need to stay in!

Ways you can help ! We are in need of; MOT style seat covers, strong bags, couple of phones, food donations but storage is currently an issue as we are working from our homes. The list of people requiring support is growing and we are unable to bulk buy shopping due to supermarket restrictions.

Our funds are depleting due to our need to support our service users with essential items even providing microwaves for those not used to cooking. Access to additional monies at this time would be a huge help to allow us to continue to support over the coming months. Many of our service users have very complex mental health needs and this situation has only increased their difficulties. We seek to support them however we can and are often the only people ringing to check on them and dropping essential items to their doorsteps. If you can help us at this time of crisis, we would be forever grateful.

Simone from The Goodness Collective has set up this temporary Just Giving Page whilst we await our charity page for approval. Even £5 would help us buy bread and milk for one of our service users for a week or a electric card top up.

If you can’t support us in any of the above ways, please do follow us on twitter @stockport_uff and share our posts and this plea for support. Social media and online fundraising support would be fantastic!

Thank you and stay safe from Dianne, Bart and all at team STUFF