Arthur Ellis: Mental Health Support (@ArthurEllisMHS) is a local organisation in Milton Keynes, set up by Jon Manning (@JonManningAE) to provide realistic and practical ways to identify, support and manage mental health at any age.
In partnership with MKFM and Thomas Connolly, Arthur Ellis are bringing the people of Milton Keynes the MK Mental Health Hour, an hour every Sunday evening from 7pm where we’ll be discussing a variety of topics with some pretty exciting guests, not just to bring awareness to the issues we all face but to provide expert, practical advice.
Arthur Ellis started just over a year ago in Milton Keynes and have made quite an impact. The way they increase emotional intelligence has won national awards from Business in the Community, part of the Princes Trust, and their training has seen them win Best New Business across Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire. Jon has also swiped his own awards, being Entrepreneur of the Year across the region and nominated Nationally.
Our aims are simple. To provide honest, practical and brilliant training and support services to fuel the 1:1s for children unable to access help elsewhere.
Jon, Founder of Arthur Ellis experienced his own difficulties growing up, living with an undiagnosed disorder for 20 years, not being able to access help. When he was finally diagnosed, his attitude towards life and his purpose changed.
“As a nation, we HAVE to know what to do if someone is experiencing difficulties, not feeling awkward or confused about how we can help. We need to be more self-sufficient and not just rely on
our services, like the NHS who are completely underfunded and struggling to cope. We need to be #IndependentFromIllness. I see negativity surrounding mental health everywhere, let’s bring hope, positivity and celebrate recovery and management of conditions rather than putting a focus on the negative.”
Lia and Darren from MKFM said;
“Mental Health can be such a minefield here in Milton Keynes. We are pleased to be working alongside Arthur Ellis. Their expertise in conjunction with mental health professionals will highlight the importance of discussing mental health while being able to directly provide and signpost people in the right direction to receive appropriate support. The Mental Health Hour will not only bring organisations together but will offer practical help to our listeners. The hour will also be available as a podcast on our website for people to download, listen again and share.”
Joe Connolly, Co-Founder of Thomas Connolly has said;
“Thomas Connolly estate agents have been trading since March 2015 and have since grown to be one of the go-to estate agencies in Milton Keynes. We have achieved some amazing things and that is all down to the support we have had from the community of Milton Keynes including Tenants, Landlords, Families and our Suppliers. Over the next year, we will be giving back to that this brilliant community by getting behind causes that we believe in. Mental health isn’t a tangible thing that you can see and not commonly discussed but we all need to speak about it, be aware of it and support it – but we need to know how and that’s why we are so passionate about the supporting the work that Arthur Ellis is doing and helping them with what they want to achieve.”
Our 1:1 Mentoring is open to all. All our Mentors are experienced in supporting people through difficult times and go through our own thorough checks and training before getting matched with someone who needs help.
The work our Mentors do with their Mentees is completely dependent on their needs, maybe someone is in a waiting list and needs someone to talk to until they achieve that support. Maybe they can’t access services and need some support to learn coping strategies. In some cases, we just have people coming in once a month to have a catch up and see if there’s anything we can help them tackle as a preventative measure.
We have identified that if we wanted to provide free support to all the children in Milton Keynes, currently unable to access help, we would need £1,000,000. ‘Gulp’. So, we raise money in a variety of ways to achieve this.
Mainly, we offer our training and talks into schools, colleges and universities as well as public and community organisations like the YMCA and The Open University to help them work with their staff and communities in ways that supports their mental health and well-being.
We also have some pretty amazing partnerships, like Imogen Sheeran. Imogen typically creates beautiful hand-made jewellery for her very talented sons’ single releases…like the ‘Castle on the Hill’ bracelet. With Arthur Ellis, Imogen makes bracelets for us to sell and each one sold provides one mentoring session for the children we support.
We will also soon be opening up the ability for local organisations and people to sponsor our goals of creating this self-sustaining service by sponsoring children for mentorship, trainers to go into schools and teach our techniques directly to young people or mentors who can support a number of children.
If you would like to discuss how you can support Arthur Ellis in it’s aims, please get in touch!
See you for our first show, September 8th at 7pm!
