Sharon Rutherford, Co-Director of Insula Wellbeing Ltd

I am the Co-Director (alongside Jessica Melville) of Insula Wellbeing Ltd, a private mental health service with offices in Bangor and Holywood. As a fully qualified mental health practitioner with over 22 years’ experience working in acute mental health in the NHS, my expertise is in the comprehensive assessment and treatment of mental illness; providing a wide range of therapeutic interventions with a focus on practical application to affect rapid change.

Wednesday 8 June 2022

Sharon Rutherford, Co-Director of Insula Wellbeing Ltd

The company was established because I have witnessed the devastating effects of waiting too long for specialised help and that early intervention is always more effective.

We all know that mental health struggles are rising rapidly and whilst there are a lot of mental health support services available, many who need these are not accessing them. This can be for a wide range of reasons but is often because they don't understand what they are experiencing or what they need help with. This is where our company can help and without the NHS waiting list.

Using our extensive knowledge and experience, it’s often in only 2 sessions that we can help turn things around. With our experience working in acute mental health, we see that the most effective time for intervention and engagement is the first 2 sessions. Using these we can help the individual to understand their struggles and what they need to do to recover or promote wellbeing and apply strategies to manage.

Individuals can refer to us directly with ease and we also run workshop programmes that focus on a more interactive way of learning and understanding mental health. If our service is not suitable for an individual, perhaps due to costs we will endeavour to sign post as our passion is to get people the help they need. We are also very active on social media to provide free tips and guidance when we can.

Further to this we are committed to engaging businesses with our business benefit package. The struggles for companies recruiting and retaining staff is very real. With an awareness that the offer of a gym membership is no longer enough and mental health supports are now vital. Our business package can be used as part of an employee benefit which is a “thinking outside the box” strategy, proving very popular. This is not instead of existing supports but works alongside those supports, bridging the gap. It really targets those who need support (but don’t feel they fit the category of mentally ill) and are not accessing the in-house staff mental health supports. If ongoing work is needed, they will be ready and able to engage with what the company offers.

We are keen to spread the word that we are up and running. Get in touch to discuss how we can help you.

Keep up to date with the Insula Wellbeing team on their website insulawellbeing.co.uk and across Instagram & Facebook! You can also connect with Sharon on LinkedIn here.