Mental health service sharing staff lived experiences to open conversations
Alabaré's Now You Hear Me campaign is utilising the life stories of its own employees to encourage others to reach out for help too
Last updated 23rd Jan 2026
One of Wiltshire's leading mental health services is using its staff's lived experiences to encourage others to have open conversations about their issues.
It's part of Alabaré's Now You Hear Me campaign, and is seeing employees of the charity become "books" in order to share their stories.
The organisation offers mental health support to clients at its drop-in centre at the Riverside Sanctuary in Salisbury, it's crisis homes in Chippenham and Swindon, and it's county-wide Access Community Mental Health programme.
We've spoken to Head of Homelessness, Alex Cattelona, and Lead Principal for Marketing Communications, Nicky Matthews, who have shared their experiences with us.
Highlighting men's mental health
Alex's book, "Boys Don't Cry" puts the focus onto how men deal with their mental health issues, and he's hoping he can help reduce some of the stigma around men seeking help for their concerns.
He said he wants to "empower" people coming to Alabaré for help and to reassure them they're not alone.
"I think the more men that speak about their mental health, it does help to break the stigma," Alex said. "I am completely comfortable and open and I've come to accept all of my lived experiences.
"If some of my lived experience can help another person and as well reduce some of that stigma associated with men's mental health, then I think it's really worth sharing our stories."
Void of male role models
Alex, who has lived experience with knife crime, substance use and teen pregnancy, tells us he didn't have many male role models as a young man.
"I didn't have that person to say, hey, bigger, older, more experienced man, what do I do in this situation?" he said. It meant he had to navigate those challenges himself, which he says led him to making decisions with serious consequences.
He told us the modern world lacks significant positive role models for young men.
"The information that comes through to us can be so diluted or overwhelming, so how do you navigate what's a positive influence and what isn't?" he said.
"Certainly on the surface it may look good to have fast cars and fast houses, but are we really satisfying the inner and spiritual needs we have as an individual?" Alex added.
He stressed there's no issue in having aspirations to get material things, but said there is a vital need for the foundations to be set within ourselves with strength and resilience.
Opening the book on the menopause
Nicky's story highlights the challenges women face when living through the menopause, with her book, "Hot Flushes and Hard Truths".
She tells us it's a topic that needs more conversation, but that identifying the symptoms is key.
"You may not feel that you've reached that stereotypical menopausal place in life, but that you may actually be experiencing something and just being able to have that dialogue with friends, family, partners and so on and so forth, and obviously with medical professionals," she said.
Nicky revealed her experience took a toll on her mental health, telling us it dented her confidence.
"I was a business person at the time and I was coping with an awful lot post-divorce and I was starting to have panic attacks and it took me quite a few years actually to actually recognise that those panic attacks may have been driven by the menopause symptoms that I appreciated later on I was experiencing," she said.
It ended up causing her to feel unconfident as a confident woman at the time, which led to difficulties in her workplace.
Conversation is key
She stressed the importance of speaking to other women about symptoms.
Nicky said: "I've had conversations with girlfriends who subsequently were going through some anxieties in their personal or their work life.
"They were obviously having physical symptoms too which might have affected them and it was just being able to sort of say you know 'have you thought it could be the menopause?'"
She hopes people hearing her story will be able people to know that they're not alone and what they're experiencing is nothing to feel ashamed of, while adding that employers need to be understanding of how it can affect a woman's ability to be at her best at different times.