People in Sussex who are depressed, lonely or anxious are to be offered free, easily accessible support through the Friendship Bench, a pioneering pilot spreading around the world.
The Friendship Bench scheme, which involves a wooden park bench being placed in a public space, offers a listening ear, in the shape of so-called “grandmothers” and “grandfathers” to anyone passing.
These lay counsellors receive just two weeks of training. But analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the model resulted in an 80% reduction in depression and suicidal ideation, and a 60% increase in clients’ quality of life.
After six months, 80% of clients who had sat down to chat with a lay counsellor were still symptom-free.
Founded in Zimbabwe by Prof Dixon Chibanda in 2006, the model has spread to other cities and countries around the world, including New York, Washington, Qatar and Jordan.
In the past three years alone, with the support of the World Health Organization, more than half a million people have benefited.
Now Dr Nina Lockwood, a research fellow at Brighton and Sussex medical school and the National Institute for Health and Care Research, is introducing the scheme to Sussex.
“It is interesting to see a model founded in Africa travelling west but as with many countries across the globe, dedicated investment in mental health support provision in the UK is insufficient to satisfactorily address the mental health needs of our population,” Lockwood said. “We urgently need to adopt agile, alternative ways of working.”
In deference to the British weather, the Sussex benches will be placed not outside, as in Zimbabwe, but in indoor areas such as libraries, church halls and community spaces.
Local people can make appointments to talk through their problems and explore possible solutions. They then go away, try the solution and report back.
The Sussex pilot will involve 10 lay mental-health workers who will hold weekly sessions for six to eight weeks.
Mebrak Ghebreweldi, a co-founder of the Sussex-based Diversity Resource International, which supports ethnically diverse and migrant communities, has been trained as one of the first Sussex “grandmothers”.
“If someone comes to us with stress, we have the time to talk to them until they tell us they’re living in one room with their four children – so the problem is actually housing, and we help with that,” she said. “Or young people might come and say they’re depressed, but after we’ve gone deeper, it turns out they’re unemployed – so the problem is they haven’t found work, and we can help with that.
“GPs don’t have time for those long conversations,” she said. “They’ll just prescribe something for the headache and the depression. By unnecessarily medicalising them, the client is disempowered and that can actually make things worse.”
Chibanda said he had developed the model after realising that “the answers to the global mental health crisis do not lie in more diagnoses of disorders or prescriptions for medications”.
“Most of us are aware that we are in the midst of an excruciating global mental health epidemic that has taken a harsh toll with respect to the sheer numbers of people living with depression, loneliness, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, and suicidal ideation,” he said.
“I came to realise that while not everyone can see a mental health professional, most people have access to a vital untapped resource: the care, compassion, empathy, and wisdom of grandmothers – the unsung heroines of the world.”
About one in six adults across the UK experienced moderate to severe depressive symptoms in 2022, and up to 10% of people in England will experience depression at some point in their life, according to the Mental Health Foundation.
Research suggests the total cost of mental ill health in England in 2022 was £300bn, with people who have depression at higher risk of developing certain chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, pain, osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s disease.
Stigma and denial can mean it takes years for people with mental health problems to ask for help. But even once they do, waiting times on the NHS can be 18 weeks, with some waiting even longer.
• This article was amended on 8 April 2025. People in Sussex can make an appointment to talk through their problems but they cannot just turn up as stated in an earlier version.
