Mental health chat grows into UK-wide lifeline

What started as a WhatsApp group for men to share their feelings has grown into a nationwide support network, with organisers saying demand continues to rise five years on.

Kelvin Farmer, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, started Brotherhood in Arms in 2021 as a way for men to share their feelings in a safe environment, free of judgment and the group has now grown to about 90 members around the country.

He and other group leaders actively find men online who they believe to be struggling with their mental health and invite them to join their main WhatsApp support chat, as well as specific interest chats like football and rugby.

"It's about breaking down social anxiety barriers, having some fun and helping each other," said Farmer, who credits his wife Kayleigh with providing the encouragement he needed to start the network.

"It's all grown immensely. In December, we launched Brotherhood in Arms Scotland, and we've got a whole team there now.

"In the last five years I'd say there's around 300-400 men we've helped to talk and many have gone on to do self improvement courses," he added.

The group now holds events where members can meet up, including a "lads walk" in Cheltenham later this year.

As the group grew in size, the main chat started to become overloaded, and people's messages were sometimes going unnoticed.

To combat this, Farmer and his team of a few volunteers created interest-based sub-chats for men to engage in.

"We found men open up in different ways, through football, wrestling, boxing and others," Farmer said.

The group is now a registered Community Interest Company (CIC), and was designed to help all men, not just those who feel comfortable enough to message.

"There is a twice-weekly poll, where people can indicate how they are feeling. Anyone who is feeling low will get a message from a member of the admin team to check in," Farmer added.

There is also an open-door policy which allows men to come and go from the group as they please.

The group's executive chairman, Gareth Blackburn, originally joined as a member who was struggling with his mental health and substance abuse.

"If I could take it or drink it, I did," he said.

"I was doing TikTok lives and got a message from Kelvin on the Brotherhood account asking if I was okay and telling me there's a men's mental health group.

"At first I thought I didn't want any of that.

"I eventually joined the group, after several months started talking, and five years later I'm an executive chairman."

He said the subgroups were vital for checking in on members, particularly during the World Cup.

"If you [had] a guy posting in the football chat all the time about the game and the scorers, and they [went] quiet for a couple of days, you noticed and said 'are they alright? I should check on them'."

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