Tough truck ready to offer mobile mental health support to those in need

Tough Enough to Care, a charity working to eradicate the "Man up" culture, began an appeal six months ago for donations to help it purchase the Tough Truck, a purpose-made mobile mental health support service.

Now, after donations from across the community, the Dudley-based charity has been able to purchase and appropriately decorate the truck.

Founder Stuart Bratt said it was a tremendous show of faith by supporters and local companies in the charity and spoke about what the next steps were.

He said: "We are now aiming to get out there and give back to the people who supported us, such as Tactical Coffee and Explosive Events.

"We're already booked to go to events throughout the summer and we're getting messages coming in asking us to attend workplace drop-in sessions.

"As restrictions are starting to ease, month on month, people are pencilling us in to come to their events."

Mr Bratt said the truck would attend public events, workplaces, sports clubs, community green spaces and town centres, offering a safe place to talk about mental health issues.

It would also allow the team of trained volunteers to help cut through the fog that often shrouds accessibility to professional mental health services.

He said it was a mobile support group on wheels, with the message being that if you can't attend a group, then the group will come to you.

He said: "We can't always promise to be there in five minutes and we can't help everyone, but we will try and help as many people as we possibly can.

"This is the first major stepping stone forward for the charity and this is something we can build on and say we can deliver on what we have promised before.

"We'd like to get more trucks now and have a solid base for going out and offering support, but this is definitely the genesis of what we do next."

To find out more about the Tough Truck, visit the charity's Facebook page.