Giving Compass' Take:

• Debbie Hall explains how a community-based mental health program will help reach isolated individuals in rural communities in West Lothian, Scottland. 

• Can this approach work in other rural communities? What support - beyond financial donations - do communities need to successfully implement a strategy like this one? 

• Learn about the mental health needs of rural children in the U.S.

A new project to tackle mental health issues in rural communities is coming to West Lothian.

The scheme from the mental health charity Support in Mind Scotland and the National Rural Mental Health Forum want to improve harder-to-reach people’s mental wellbeing in fragile rural communities.

The charity will work with the ‘hard to reach’ including workless and/or lone parent households, homeless people, and those experiencing other forms of disadvantage or inequality in West Lothian and beyond.

"This project will enable a safe platform to empower the people and their representative communities in a quest to change or enhance positive attitudes, knowledge and beliefs about mental health," said Louise Middleton, community development worker for West Lothian.

The focus being what support, resources and opportunities are already out there awaiting them or could potentially be developed and unravelled as a result or connecting together and improving, using and collaborating through the use of natural resources within West Lothian communities.

Read the full article about mental health issues in rural areas by Debbie Hall at Daily Record & Sunday Mail.