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Welcome to the website of MHAPS – Mental Health Advocacy and Peer Support.

We are a peer-led, Christchurch-based charitable trust working in the area of mental health and addictions. Our passion is to assist people who experience mental distress/mental illness and/or addictions towards recovery. We do this through peer support by engaging, encouraging and providing relevant information in the knowledge that people often know their own paths to wellness and need help and support over the hurdles they may face.

MHAPS was formed by a merger of Anxiety Support Canterbury, Bipolar Support Canterbury and Psychiatric Consumers Trust in July 2011 in order to provide a variety of services easily available to people experiencing mental distress/mental illness and addictions.

All our services are free of charge and no referral is required. They include:

  • peer support services to people with anxiety and bipolar disorder
  • peer advocacy for people with mental illness and/or addiction experience
  • a peer-run drop in social centre
  • a weekly social drop-in for Pacifica peoples
  • a weekly show on Plains FM on mental health and addiction issues
  • an effective mental health consumer leadership and participation group who are contributing ideas for improvements to mental health service delivery across the sector
  • support for family/whanau members who may need information and assistance themselves.

Read on for more details of what we can offer you. We encourage you to make contact with us if you feel we can be of assistance.

 

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“I cannot stress enough how helpful and important this kind of service is to someone in my position with very bad mental health facing some difficult and serious things”