Falmouth Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs sports groups and more.

We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations regularly in a feature called 'Up Close in Falmouth and Penryn'.

This week we spoke with the team from Sea Sanctuary, a unique charity taking mental healthcare out of the office and onto the water.

1. For people who might not be familiar, what does Sea Sanctuary do?

Sea Sanctuary is a Cornish based, well established, truly innovative and award-winning mental health charity, and one of the world's leading exponents of 'blue health'; a growing body of scientific evidence that confirms that spending time near water is beneficial to our mental and physical wellbeing.

Founded in 2006, after identifying that conventional treatment did not adequately address the complex challenges of mental illness for many, Sea Sanctuary now offers support for adults, children and families.

The team has years of success in combining evidence-based therapies with marine-based activities such as sailing that provide an invigorating sense of adventure along with the support people require to build and sustain emotional resilience and an improved level of wellbeing.

2. How have you tried to combat the challenges of lockdown?

COVID-19 and mandatory self-isolation created a unique situation. People were suddenly at risk of experiencing problematic loneliness.

Many of our clients, who are vulnerable and have poor mental health, struggled during lockdown. That time reduced their emotional threshold and ability to manage a raft of complex behaviours and illnesses. As a result, throughout the lockdown period, Sea Sanctuary has tried to remain alongside our clients as best we could whilst adhering to government guidelines.

Post-lockdown is proving to be a long-term problem of emotional distress too, as there continues to be an emerging sense of collective anxiety.

People are fearful and questioning if restrictions are safe and there are added pressures from loss of income, isolation, reduction in service provision, poverty, relationship breakdowns, domestic violence and abuse as well as the continued worry of being infected by COVID-19 itself.

The mental health impact of the pandemic is likely to last much longer than the physical health impact. As a result, Sea Sanctuary is working even harder to provide emotional support within our community with the services we are offering and develop new outreach provisions for those who are struggling.

This process has involved providing virtual art classes, setting-up a gratitude practice routine and maintains links with the most vulnerable members of our community through our G999 project, working alongside the police.

3. What services do you offer?

Sea Sanctuary's services are now not only looking at improving wellbeing and mental health, but also looking at ways of creating and maintaining meaningful connections for many isolated people. Following government guidelines, we are currently offering:-

Individual Therapy: Our team of qualified therapists use evidence-based therapy for many who are struggling with their mental health; this includes, stress, anxiety, depression, abuse, PTSD, trauma and other mental and emotional health problems.

Sailing: We deliver our award-winning residential therapeutic sailing programmes onboard our spacious and well -equipped yacht 'Winter'. By combining marine activities with psychological therapies and emotional and practical skills education, our programmes have proven to be a recipe for success.

Creativity: Our creative hub provides activities to complement our programmes afloat. It offers clients the opportunity to socialise, regroup, relax, and find inner stability, giving us the opportunity to provide continuity of care to our clients. We are currently running online creative art workshops.

Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) – the lockdown has resulted in many businesses looking far more closely at their employees level of mental health resilience. At Sea Sanctuary, we can provide a bespoke package of care and support to the employees, helping them to maintain emotional equilibrium and balance. Whether one-to-one support or larger group intervention, Sea Sanctuary is well placed to provide a meaningful intervention.

G999 (Police call-sign) – our partnership with the Devon & Cornwall Police is a forward-thinking partnership and allows up to support individuals in acute mental health crisis. For the last fourteen months, Sea Sanctuary has provided a unique provision within the county and has already reduced the number of people being sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

4. What do you like about Falmouth/Penryn? Why is it the perfect area for Sea Sanctuary?

Penryn is a great base for Sea Sanctuary. It has a real sense of community and our light and spacious riverside office are an ideal space for wellness and the Penryn river a perfect escape to launch our paddleboards.

We sail the Falmouth coastline which is fantastic for fair-weather sailing (and sometimes not so fair!) and are blessed with stunning scenery. We are fortunate too, that If it is blowing a gale, we have the beautiful River Fal. to provide more sheltered / calmer sailing.

But, despite our picturesque locations, and the flurry of holidaymakers, there is an undercurrent of poverty, alcohol and drug misuse, deprivation and loneliness. Sadly, our beautiful county lost eighty people as a result of suicide in 2019, a statistic that Sea Sanctuary is working tirelessly to reduce.

5. What makes Sea Sanctuary stand out from other charities?

Very rarely will an organisation be completely uncompromising in its delivery of the best possible service. Often, organisations can experience so-called mission creep or edge away from the primary business driver in pursuit of chasing funding streams.

However, Sea Sanctuary is one such organisation that has remained true to its purpose and values throughout its history. For the last ten-years, Sea Sanctuary's services have remained aligned with its core purpose; to provide the best mental health care possible. This has often resulted in the charity taking a more difficult route in the process and challenging conventional approaches along the way.

Undeterred, the charity remains entirely focused on supporting the most vulnerable members of the community and seeking innovative ways of providing better health outcomes. In the main, a formula of better mental health exists for each and every person; crucially, in order to achieve this, a root-cause assessment and treatment plan must be used. This is where Sea Sanctuary differs from most other providers – root-cause consideration is standard practice for us!

From a global perspective, mental health care must improve if we are to see a reduction in suicide rates and re-establish a sense of emotional equilibrium.

Here in Cornwall at least, Sea Sanctuary is determined to achieve this.

6. How can I access Sea Sanctuary services?

Download a referral form from our website, complete it and return to [email protected]

Or contact Anita on 01326 378919 and request a referral form is posted to you.

Click here to see more from Sea Sanctuary.

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