A community skills training group has shifted its emphasis to lend a helping had to those with mental health problems in Bridport.

After years of successfully working within the learning in the community programme, sponsored by Skills and Learning Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole (BPD), the ASPIRE project is concentrating on helping those with mental health problems.

ASPIRE was created and is managed by volunteer Arthur Woodgate, co-director of Bridport Enterprise Supporting Training Ltd (BEST) - but Mr Woodgate puts its success down to the skills of award-winning coordinator, Charlotte Storey.

He said: “Charlotte has regularly exceeded expectations, often with amazing results.

“For our 2015-16 programme, she completed the target of 100 participants within just three months – nine months early.”

After the initial success, Simon Comerford, senior worker within the NHS Foundation Trust’s Support Transition and Recovery Team (START), asked ASPIRE if it would consider running a programme for people struggling to cope with mental health issues.

Mr Woodgate added: “Our funding’s dedicated towards supporting those in need and we were happy to help with something so clearly needed.

"It’s a very positive approach with a consistency of support, and this can mean practical help towards realising their aspirations. That’s why it’s called ASPIRE.”

Within just three weeks, three of the four initial participants were supported into employment for the first time in a long time, whilst the fourth went for a walk into town with Charlotte – the first time she had left her house in several years.

Funding has now been secured to continue and expand this work for at least another year.

Mr Comerford said: “ASPIRE has enabled clients to gain confidence and self-esteem, learn essential budgeting skills, develop self-employment business plans, pursue a driving license through the funding of lessons and, most importantly, look upon their lives from a more positive perspective.

“The one-to-one work, time non-limited, has been an essential component of clients’ recovery and one that the clients themselves have found invaluable.”

With as many as one in four people in the UK likely to experience some form of mental distress each year, the stigma, or fear of it, is still often considered worse than the affliction.

For more information about ASPIRE, call 01308 423767 or email a.c.woodgate@btinternet.com