Hello, I’m André Tomlin – Founder of The Mental Elf. If you like what we do and you want it to continue, please watch this short video and do what you can to help save The Mental Elf.

I started The Mental Elf in 2011 as a free website for anyone who wants to keep up to date with the latest reliable mental health research. The platform has grown beyond my wildest dreams and we now have over 3,000 blogs written by over 700 people who share our commitment for disseminating high quality mental health research to the people who need it.

My business partner Douglas Badenoch and I have previously worked for the NHS and at Oxford University. In 2002 we set up a company and we started working with charities, universities and the health service. This business is still going today, but like many small businesses we have found the last few years really hard.

We’ve funded The Mental Elf for the last 12 years out of our own pockets. It’s important to us that The Mental Elf remains an independent, trusted brand, but it costs about £50k a year to keep the site running, and right now, at the end of 2023, we’re really struggling to make ends meet. We need your help.

Please help save The Mental Elf and keep it online. We want to continue publishing regular blogs that communicate important new mental health research to the people who need it. We want everyone to be able to access these blogs and our social media posts – people who work in mental health or academia, but also people with lived experience of mental health problems.

Here’s how you can help

• Share the news – tell your friends and colleagues that The Mental Elf needs your help to survive
• Donate now – please contribute what you can afford, to help us keep the website up-and-running, and to keep publishing regular blogs and sharing them on social media
• Subscribe to the National Elf Service. It costs £10 a month or £60 a year to join the site as a member and use it to track your learning and contribute to your continuing professional development. Institutional subscriptions are also available, so please encourage your university or hospital to subscribe for their staff and students.
• Commission The Mental Elf to work on your event or research project. Our skills in mental health, social media and research, as well as our huge international network, can help you reach the audience you need for your work.

Thanks very much for listening. We hope that with your help we can keep The Mental Elf going through this really difficult time. We hope that we can look back on this time in years to come, as the moment when our community of bloggers, supporters and followers, all came together to save The Mental Elf and keep it online.