Opening Doors for 10 years!

This month sees Open Door Charity an independent mental health charity based in Wirral Merseyside reach their 10th Anniversary.

We spoke to Charity Director Lee Pennington to talk to him about the journey Open Door has been on and the importance of mental health support for young people.

ZILLO: Hi Lee, can you tell us a bit about what the Open Door Charity is and how you got started?

Open Door Charity have been at the forefront of Wirralʼs mental health conversation for the last 10 years, ODC are all about Shaping Change within mental health through the lens of social action, culture, music, art and creativity. We deliver a range of progressive projects across both a grant funded and commissioned space, which have become cornerstones of Wirralʼs wellbeing offer across young people, families and the arts. We are positive disruptors to the status quo and act as an innovative, progressive leader both in the public and third sectors of Wirral, but also regionally and nationally having won national awards and recognition since opening and now delivering services in partnership with Universities nationally and delivering lobbying campaigns with a national reach.

I came up with the idea from my bedroom, with no experience so to speak. I knew I wanted to make somewhere where me and my mates could access and feel like the whole process was positive, informal, bright and exciting, so downloaded a business plan template and applied for funding. I got 30k from Fair Share Trust to give the idea a go and its all grown from there, to the point where we have just had our tenth birthday.

ZILLO: What are the stand out moments for Open Door over the last 10 years?

Personally, winning the charity of the year award at the Spirt of Merseyside Awards in year 1 was a huge moment. It was the end of a very directionless period in my life and was a huge personally proud moment. I think opening the Bloom Building was a real catalyst for the next stage in our development and many of the positive things that we do now stemmed from that. Being invited to the palace to receive essentially an MBE for the volunteer team (Queens Award) was a good one, but in the same way there are a million small victories each year when we have a positive impact in members lives which shouldn’t go unnoticed.

ZILLO: Why should young people consider coming to Open Door for support and what can they expect to see when they come to you?

If you want your mental health support to be active, exciting, interesting, young adult led and in a space which is unique then we’re the people for you! You will expect a warm welcome and a range of things on offer outside of just the support side of things – events, gigs, fairs, festivals and much more.

ZILLO: Is there any advice for you can give to someone who might be struggling with their mental health?

I would say don’t put off doing something about it. There are things which you can do and the sooner you get involved in them the better. Nobodies life needs to be anything other than what they want it to be, for too long.

To find out more about Open Door Charity and how you can access support from them visit Open Door Charity and on Instagram