Hi, I’m Nick and I’m the founder of Hush Tell Us, and I want to tell you how Hush began. I wanted to be part of the solution with the growing lack of mental health support out there. Everyone I spoke with, they were telling me that therapy and counselling is so expensive they couldn’t afford it, and if they were offered anything by the state, the waiting lists were so long and when they eventually did get to some sort of help, it was delivered by unqualified individuals who weren’t being paid properly, who were completely uninspired, and who were not being supported themselves in a deeply flawed service arrangement being offered by the state.
With my background in Social Work from Edinburgh University, I knew that I had the skills and abilities to set up a service to address these core issues that would deliver a service so that people could contact somebody about their mental health, and it would be affordable, accessible, delivered by professionals. And I also thought it would be great, you know, if the person gets a great deal and the therapist is paid well I think everyone benefits all round. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to create something where the prices were much more realistic, and how I run things, for example, they are much more measured, tapered and realistic in order to help people get access to their mental health.
I think that if someone charges £200 an hour, basically they are saying, “I’m not part of the mental health conversation. I’m so expensive that I’m only going to be speaking to 0.002% of the population who can afford that.” In my view, that’s a big loss. We can’t have that continuing. That’s not acceptable. One of the things I was taught is that if there is an issue or if there is a problem, you have to push your ego out the way and ask yourself… is what I’m doing effective? And if you’re helping a tiny, tiny percentage of the population, you’re not effective, you’re not helpful, and you’re actually part of the problem. Sometimes that’s hard for other professionals to accept.
Basically, you know, I think that if you tell your friends and families about Hush Tell Us, because it’s time to remind people that there is a service available there, and that you’re not alone. We’ve got people here waiting, we’ve got therapists here ready to speak with people. The key sort of thing is just letting people know that we’re actually here and that we exist.
I want you to know that you can trust what I’m delivering is going to be beneficial for you. And I, as the founder of Hush Tell Us, quality controlling everything which is quite nice because it means that we don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy, the red tape, and the waiting lists of the state.
Thank you very much.
Nick
Founder of Hush Tell Us
