A group that supports people with their mental health and wellbeing is hailing their new premises for allowing them to open up to more people and provide for everyone's needs.

The Mental Health Independent Support Team (MhIST) has moved into Moorland House in Bark Street, within the last year, having been in Hanover House, with another hub in Westhoughton still running.

Moorland House is a much larger premises which allows them to accommodate many more people for a wide range of different support groups and wellbeing sessions that have been created, which is especially important with the increased demand they have seen throughout Covid combined with the limitations on numbers.

The support team has continued to see people throughout the pandemic, offering a wide range of services, with many more groups in the works.

Christine Makinson, the project’s self-help group manager, said: "We have a number of different support and wellbeing groups that have been running throughout the pandemic.

"Social isolation and loneliness is something that has really increased for a lot of people during the last 15 months so having a safe space to come to like this is really important for a lot of people.

"We run groups where people come in and just talk to other people, whatever they want to talk about, called mindfulness groups which can be really useful to some people.

"But we also do art groups and are starting to run creative writing groups as sometimes distracting people can really help them open up.

"Some of the art and writing that gets done too is so good, it really shows that despite maybe having some mental health problems people can be very talented.

"We try and make our sessions as accommodating and person led as possible, we are always creating new types of sessions and evolving our current ones to make sure it is helping people as best it can. We are absolutely led by our members."

On the importance of Mental Health Awareness Week (running nationally this week), Christine added: "This week is important for raising awareness but for us mental health is important 52 weeks of the year.

"For us the important thing is not big companies running campaigns it's the grassroots community campaigns that make people think about their mental health.

"This could be someone raising a little bit of money by going on a run when they don't usually or supporting a friend with mental health issues by reaching out to them.

"This is why we really want to get involved in more communities. At the moment we are based in Bolton and Westhoughton but we are really keen to get involved in the communities of Farnworth and others as people in all different communities of Bolton have their own needs.

"For us its all about getting involved and reaching out to all communities to help as many people in as many different ways as possible."

MhIST is currently running a survey asking the community what support they feel is most needed.

To take part, click here.