A MENTAL health charity said it is working to expand its services to Bridgwater thanks to a £10,000 grant from the Hinkley Community Impact Mitigation Fund.

In Charley’s Memory (ICM), a mental health charity based in Burnham-on-Sea, was awarded the grant in 2018 and has been in talks with bosses at Hinkley Point C to extend its counselling services to apprentices who are working at the site.

The charity was given £1,500 for their first phase of the grant, which will be paid over three years, at the end of last year and used it to provide outreach in Bridgwater to see if there was a demand for their service.

Dawn Carey, operations manager at ICM, said: “We know that there is a big need for counselling in Bridgwater.

“There are a lot of apprentices which are coming out of Bridgwater and Taunton College to come and work at Hinkley C and we want to be there to support them.

“We will receive our next payment of £4,250 in October and we will use the money to provide an on-site counsellor at Hinkley.

“It will give the apprentices a safe space where they can go and speak to a qualified counsellor about their issues on site.

“We will also be holding drop in sessions in Bridgwater so we can reach young people in the community.”

Dawn said Somerset Community Foundation have been ‘extremely supportive’ of the work the charity has been doing and she looking forward to getting the scheme up and running in the town.

She said: “We would not have been able to get any of this done without the support of the Somerset Community Foundation, they have been vital in making this happen.

“We will be using the final £4,750 to keep the scheme up and running once it is started.

“Mental health can affect anyone at anytime and we want to be there to support as many people as we can.

“The community side of this project is really important to us.

“In September/October we will be going to Bridgwater and Taunton College to meet apprentices who are starting work at Hinkley Point C so they know our faces and know that we are there to offer support to them should they need it.

“We have had great success with our counselling in Burnham-on-Sea and we can’t wait to get this scheme up and running in Bridgwater.”