Based in Sunderland, Headlight is a fantastic mental health resource centre which offers volunteer opportunities, signposts members in the right direction, and runs various courses and recreational activities to give those struggling with poor mental health the tools to better manage their wellbeing.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Headlight says they are helping more people than ever – and they expect a high demand on their services over the Christmas period.

“We currently support around 70 to 80 people per week, but at Christmastime what tends to happen is people have this chocolate-box image of what Christmas should be like and when it doesn’t live up to that standard is when people start having trouble,” said Headlight manager Alison Bailey.

“A lot of places close down over Christmas and that means they haven’t got access to their usual spaces, their usual routine, so we try and keep things in place, give them strategies so they can get through the festive period.”

Howard Civil Engineering has donated £400 to the charity to help them support their service users this Christmas, and Alison and the team are overjoyed!

“Once again, thank you so much for your donation. To give you an idea of the difference we can make with £400, it covers the cost of providing 60 Listening sessions for people, or a Support Worker for the project for a week, or 30 hours of Generalist Advice Work tailored for people with mental health issues. Donations like yours mean a great deal to charities like ours and enable us to continue to provide these services and make a big difference for our service users and their families. Thank you so much for thinking of us – you have made our day. Thank you from us all.”

Throughout December, Howard Civil Engineering is spreading festive cheer by donating £5,000 to a variety of charities and community groups across the north of England! We have chosen 12 different causes to help this festive period and we will be documenting these throughout the month using the hashtag #12DaysOfHCE.