Mental health peer support company founder from Potton has published this short book to help others

A founder of a mental health peer support company in Bedfordshire has published a short book highlighting mental health challenges.

Luke Newman 40, from Potton has designed and written The Mental Health Moles in a style similar to the famous Mr Men books. It features 52 storyboards accompanied by brightly coloured illustrations that offer advice on mental health topics from anxiety, depression and grief to social media, stress, sleep and many more.

And a crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money for 100 copies to be printed was reached in less than a day.

Luke explained: "People donated a minimum of amount of £10 and would receive a personalised and signed copy done by myself. That target was reached in just 18 hours. I can’t thank those people enough for the support."

Luke has lost both his mother and sister to cancer and felt that there wasn’t an open platform for himself and other men to have a place to talk about their feelings openly.

So in 2019, Luke launched ‘For Men to Talk’ providing men with an opportunity to talk about their mental health during a weekly meeting.

The group started at the beginning of 2020 in Jones Café in Biggleswade until the coronavirus lockdown moved them to the Zoom virtual online platform. Luke hopes the meetings will return to the café in July, as well as continuing online, depending on lockdown restrictions.

Suitable for all ages and genders, The Mental Health Moles book is available to purchase for £4.99 from the Amazon Kindle store and £5.99 for the printed version - which will soon be

available from the ‘For Men To Talk’ website - where you can also find more information about how to join the weekly sessions.