Ep 30 - Georgina speaks to Niki Clarke founder of mental health charity My Black Dog 🐕‍🦺 ☔ 📱

What is ‘My Black Dog’? Niki says, ‘it is a peer-to-peer support service for people who are struggling with their mental health’. With two big differences, ‘all our volunteers have a lived experience which means they’ve been through it before - they totally get it - they know how you feel’ and instead of calling you text. Deciding to make the service text only was done to make it easier for people to communicate how they were feeling. Niki says the fear of saying how you are feeling out loud… ‘suddenly becomes really real, and you’ve now said this thing and it’s out there and you can’t get it back’. 

Niki explains she wanted to set up this service to make it easier for people to get help when they needed it. She points out that the benefits of seeing a professional face-to-face are clear but waiting lists are long and sometimes it’s just not possible or appealing. Niki talks about her own experiences of how she felt after going to an appointment. ‘You just go there, and you release the kraken and all these things come out and its really emotional and I remember once I had a session, and I was just devastated by the end of it.’ She set up My Black Dog so that this way people can, ‘talk to someone in [their] jimjams at home somewhere that it’s comfy and cosey and you feel mentally safe’. 

Like with many new initiatives over the past two years My Black Dog was there just when people needed it. As Niki says it meant they had to be very adaptable and grow very fast, finding new tech and getting more volunteers to be able to provide a high-end service for people getting in touch. Niki reminiscences about the first few months of the pandemic, ‘not only are we ideally placed… for people to get help for their mental health, but we don’t have any money and we’re going to be busier than we’ve ever been before, and we were it was a 2,030% increase in a year!’. The interview was recorded on Monday 27th Sept at 2.30pm BST.

To donate or volunteer go to 👉www.myblackdog.co/

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