In episode 224 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Andy Noon.
Andy currently works as Head of Centre at the Liverpool branch of a charity called James’ Place.
James’ Place is a charity offering free, life-saving treatment to suicidal men in their centres, currently in Liverpool, London and Newcastle.
The charity was founded by Clare Milford Haven and Nick Wentworth-Stanley following the tragic death of their son James to suicide in 2006.
Clare and Nick were determined to prevent other families from losing loved ones and set up James’ Place to provide support for men in suicidal crisis whose needs are not met by existing services.
James’s Place goal and purpose is to stop men dying by suicide.
They do this by intervening at the point of suicide for these men and their professional therapists get quickly to the heart of a man’s suicidal crisis and help him solve it.
In this episode, we discuss the work he does at James Place and the work it does for men and the factors and triggers that bring these men to their suicidal state.
We dive into what James’ Place does to help these men, get back to leading a normal life and most importantly, in the words of James Place, ‘find hope for the future’.
We also discuss the importance of avoiding terms like ‘toxic masculinity’, why despite these men feeling suicidal, the vast majority are not mentally ill and are simply responding to negative trauma events in their life such as relationship breakdown, grief, unemployment or other triggers.
For Andy’s mental health, he has gone through two periods of his life where he experienced intense mental health difficulties. The first was in 2013 where he began experiencing anxiety and panic attacks. He also failed his university degree but out of shame and stigma, did not disclose it to anyone and put on a lot of weight.
He was also in a job he did not want to be in long-term and felt, in his words, ‘stuck’.
The second period came in 2020 which came from a culmination of events including a relationship breakdown, grief, a physical injury which made him bed-bound for three months and work-place stress.
We discuss both these periods, how they affected his mental health and how he recovered from them.
As always, #itsokaytovent
If you are a man who requires James’ Place support or know a man who does, you can find out more about James’ Place here.
Contact details for all their centres are also below:
James’ Place Liverpool:
Email: liverpool@jamesplace.org.uk
Contact Number: 0151 303 5757
Address: 50 Catharine St, Liverpool L8 7NG
James’ Place London:
Email: london@jamesplace.org.uk
Contact Number: 020 3488 8404
Address: 20 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8LP
James’ Place Newcastle:
Email: newcastle@jamesplace.org.uk
Contact Number: 0191 406 6000
Address: 1 Summerhill Street, Newcastle, NE4 6EJ
You can follow James’ Place on social media below:
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