A VITAL mental health service that was set to close this week is set to continue giving patients a lifeline.

Shadows Depression Support Group has been supporting around 1,600 people in the Amman and Gwendraeth valleys for the last six years, and has received funding from the Amman and Gwendraeth GP cluster for the past three years.

It has provided immediate, and often life-saving support to those who need help with their mental health, offering a walk-in service which avoids the referral from GPs to other mental health services that can take up to 18 months, allowing those in immediate crisis to get the vital help and support they need.

Many users of the service – which has always been free to those needing support – have spoken about how Shadows has saved their lives and that they would not be here if it wasn’t for the help provided.

A number have even gone on to get trained to become volunteers and staff at Shadows as a way to thank them for their help and to help others who are in the same situation as they were.

Earlier this year, Shadows was told that the funding provided by the Amman and Gwendraeth GP cluster would be stopped on September 6, and this would leave the group needing to find £96,000 a year to be able to keep the service running to help save the lives of many more individuals.

Despite vital support from the community, providing donations to help, they have been unsuccessful in all applications for major funding from various sources and were set to close their doors.

But Shadows will now be remaining open for the coming months by charging a small fee for those who need to use their service to help towards the running costs.

“People are panicking now in case we close,” said Louise Craik, founder of Shadows.

“We have decided that if we closed on the 5 September what impact will this have on the people we already support and any others who need support face to face?

“We have decided that from 6 September we will try and stay open by charging a small cost for people wanting to utilise Shadows services until we obtain further funding.

“This has been a very hard decision to come to as we definitely don’t want to close and we really don’t want to have to charge people to use this service, but we have made the decision to do this so as to keep Shadows open.

“We just hope that we can be successful in obtaining funding to get Shadows Depression Support Group back to how it should be whereby it is funded so that the people of the Amman and Gwendraeth valleys can access it free of charge.”

Group sessions will be charged at £7 for an hour and a half and £10 for two hours and includes a wide range of resources and access to direct support through WhatsApp.

There is an action committee set up to try and keep Shadows open which is being led by Garnant County Councillor Kevin Madge, with the committee working behind the scenes to secure funding sources.

They will also be hosting a demonstration outside the S4C studios in Carmarthen on September 14, when Hywel Dda University Health Board is holding a meeting to discuss location plans for the new hospital.