A snapshot of our history

In 2009, House of Light were supported by Hull Clinical Commissioning Group to expand its service delivery and named Charity of the Year by the Smile Foundation. The need for our service had been acknowledged and we were ploughing forward providing the best possible care to new mums. Our peer support group was very well attended, and we loved watching new friendships and bonds form between our mums, we also delivered one to one support for those people who found attending a group too difficult.

In 2012 we recognised that it wasn’t just in the postnatal period mums were struggling and it wasn’t just mum who need our help. Dads needed our support too! We expanded our workforce and began offering support both antenatally and postnatally to mum and dad. We also employed qualified counsellors to help those who needed more than support to work through and process their thoughts and feelings.

In 2014 mental health service delivery changed dramatically. Hull Clinical Commissioning Group made strategic changes that would improve access to mental health services for everyone. Counselling had historically been something very few could afford, now anyone would be able to access it for free.

City Healthcare Partnership Hull became the lead provider for the Let’s Talk counselling service and House of Light was one of the original sub-providers. Now any new mum with a Hull GP could access counselling from our specialist service via Let’s Talk.

In 2017 House of Light began working with Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust delivering counselling for perinatal patients in the East Riding of Yorkshire as part of their Emotional Wellbeing service.

We continue to this day to deliver talking therapies for both the Emotional Wellbeing Service and the Let’s Talk Service which have since been rebranded as NHS Talking Therapies (2023).

Our expanding service delivery and demand from the residents of Hull and East Riding meant that a move to larger premises was needed.

In 2018 House of Light moved from its original home at Linnaeus Street to bigger offices in Hull City Centre, which is where we are today. Our premises meet the accessibility standards, and we try to ensure that everyone can access our services no matter what their individual requirements are.

In 2019 we rolled out our perinatal awareness training across the networks. This would support others to understand the unique requirements of individuals experiencing perinatal mental health issues. We continue to deliver perinatal training to all new members of our team which can be topped up by training from the secondary mental health Perinatal Team who we work closely with.

In March 2020 as the world came to a standstill, we moved to remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic. House of Light continued successfully to offer counselling and support during this time over the telephone, online and via email and our support group moved to Zoom.

In 2021 the world felt different but slowly returned with a few hiccups to a new normal. We started offering hybrid working to our team as therapy delivery continued to be requested face to face and remotely. We launched our first face to face support group since the pandemic began at Crafty Cat Events Café in Anlaby which was a huge success.

In 2022 we moved into a new chapter of growth, looking at new contracts, expanding on our clinical team and expanding on our clinical management team.

2023 saw our biggest year of growth to date with expanding premises, more staff, our very first High Intensity CBT therapist was employed due to the generosity of the J F Brignall Trust and a new contract with the newly launched Family Hubs First 1001 Days Start for Life programme. More support groups have been developed, more support is being offered and we have also started a placement programme for final year students offering direct access into counselling. This has enabled us to have a complete stepped care model within our service. Access to support groups at step 1, step 2 direct access to primary care counselling with the placement programme and at step 3 we can offer high intensity therapies on the NHS Talking Therapy networks. Beyond this we are stepping our patients up into secondary care services.

There are so many employees, volunteers, trustees, services, and grant providers that have made House of Light what it is today. House of Light has helped many thousands of people over the years. I can hand on heart say we have the most driven, positive, passionate team of individuals who genuinely care about our local families and ensuring parents can have the best experiences of parenthood as is possible. We strive to deliver the best possible, most welcoming service we can with the patient at the centre of everything.