Every Conversation Matters: Our Impact on Mental Health Support
This World Mental Health Day, we’re sharing something we’ve been working towards for a long time: our first annual Impact Report. It’s a chance to stop and look at what we’ve achieved over the past year. But more importantly, it’s a chance to look at the people behind the numbers - the people searching for mental health support, starting difficult conversations and taking the first step towards getting help.
Because when we talk about mental health, it can be easy to talk in statistics. How many people visited the Hub of Hope? How many searches were made? How many services are available?
Those numbers matter. But behind every single number is a person.
Someone looking for help for the first time. Someone searching on behalf of a friend. A parent trying to find support for their child. A colleague worried about someone at work. Someone who might simply need to know that they aren’t the only person feeling this way.
That’s why what we do matters.
For many people, knowing they need support is one thing. Knowing where to find it is another.
Since 2016, Chasing the Stigma has been working to close that gap through the Hub of Hope - the UK’s largest mental health service directory, helping people find mental health support and services in their local area. More than one million people have now used the Hub of Hope to find mental health support.
We’re incredibly proud of that milestone, but we don’t see the Hub of Hope as simply a directory. It’s a way of making the first step a little easier, and we’ve seen just how much difference awareness can make.
This year, Chasing the Stigma was announced by The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales as one of five founding partners of a new UK-wide network bringing organisations together to prevent suicide, strengthen community wellbeing and deliver lifesaving work across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Following the launch, searches on the Hub of Hope increased by 81%.
That tells us something important: people are looking for help. When we make that help easier to see, they’re more likely to find it.
“The Hub of Hope provides, for the first time, a live and comprehensive view of cross-sector mental health support throughout the UK, alongside real-time insight into changing demand. It has the power to meet an urgent and increasing need." - Jake Mills, CEO & Founder Chasing the Stigma
But finding a service is only one part of the picture.
We also need to create a culture where people feel comfortable talking about how they’re really doing.
That means challenging the idea that mental health is something to keep to yourself. It means making “I’m not okay” a sentence people feel safe saying and giving people the confidence to ask that second question when someone says they’re struggling. Through our Ambassador of Hope programme, we’ve now trained more than 20,000 people to have conversations about mental health.
You don’t have to be an expert to make a difference.
Small moments can matter enormously. Sometimes it’s a text message to a friend you haven’t heard from in a while, sitting down and listening without trying to fix everything, or helping someone find the right service.
And the more comfortable we become talking about mental health, the more likely we are to notice when someone needs a little extra support.
Building stronger communities through partnership
This is something we can’t do alone. Over the past year, we’ve continued to build partnerships across the public, private and voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sectors, helping us reach people in places where conversations about mental health are already happening.
We’ve worked with organisations including Network Rail, supporting efforts to mitigate high-risk vulnerability, supporting mental health and wellbeing in student accommodation, and helping the NHS connect communities with support.
These partnerships are important because mental health doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s part of our workplaces, our universities, our homes, our public spaces and our communities. The Hub of Hope can also help us understand what is happening within those communities.
Its data gives us a unique, real-time view of where people are searching for mental health support, what they’re looking for and whether appropriate services are available. That insight can help identify gaps, highlight areas of increased need and support better decisions about where resources are needed.
It means we’re not just helping people find support today. We can also use what we learn to help shape better support for tomorrow.
This targeted outreach to the sports sector builds upon the launch of the National Suicide Prevention Network in Autumn 2025. Backed by over £1 million in funding from The Royal Foundation, over an initial three-year period, the National Suicide Prevention Network aims to deliver lasting change in how suicide is understood and prevented across the four nations.
Keeping the conversation going
Our first Impact Report reflects how much Chasing the Stigma has grown.
We’ve gone from a founder-led organisation to a team of 12. We’ve expanded our trustee board, strengthened our financial foundations and continued to grow our partnerships and reach.
But for us, growth isn’t about getting bigger for the sake of it. It’s about being able to do more.
More to challenge stigma. More to connect people with support. More to help communities have better conversations. More to make sure that someone searching for help can actually find it.
And that’s why World Mental Health Day is so important.
It gives us a reason to talk openly about suicide and mental health. To challenge the discomfort and stigma that can surround these conversations. And to remind people that asking for help is nothing to be ashamed of.
Mental health support and suicide prevention is something we can all contribute to, every day. It can start with checking in, listening, sharing information, and knowing where to point someone when you don’t have the answers yourself.
We won’t always know what someone is going through. But we can make it easier for them to tell us.
There’s more to do
Our first Impact Report is a moment to celebrate how far we’ve come, but it’s not a finished story.
There are still people who don’t know where to find support. There are still conversations that aren’t happening. There are still gaps that need to be addressed. So, we’ll keep going. We’ll keep building connections. Keep challenging stigma. Keep making mental health conversations more normal. And keep working towards a future where finding help doesn’t feel like another barrier to overcome.
Because behind every number in this report is a person.
And if our work can help even one more person feel able to speak up, find support or realise they’re not alone, then that work is worth doing.
Let’s keep talking, listening, checking in and looking out for one another.
Read our first Annual Impact Report and see what we’ve achieved together, and where we go from here.
Are you interested in working with us? Head to our Partnerships page to get involved.
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