A list of local help fails the week a service changes its hours or its area and the list stays the same. Publish the organisation, the place it covers, what it offers, the page you read, and the date you read it. If you cannot recheck an entry, take it off the list.
This note is a method for organisers. It is not itself a directory, and it does not mean this site can find help for a reader. No phone numbers are printed here.
An entry is reliable only while the source page still says the same thing. Store the URL and the date you checked, and remove anything you have not rechecked.
Last checked: 15 October 2026
What to write down
United Way Worldwide’s page on its information-and-referral service, read on 15 October 2026, describes a confidential service that connects people with locally available help across most of the United States and Canada, and a maintained dataset of local programmes. The useful lesson for a small community list is the maintenance, not the scale. A volunteer spreadsheet is not that dataset. It becomes misleading if it copies a number once and never looks again.
For each entry, record:
- The organisation’s name, as it appears on its own page.
- The area it says it covers. Do not stretch a city service to a whole country.
- What the page says it offers, in your own short phrase, with a link.
- The date you opened that page.
- Who on your team is due to open it again.
The NHS page “How to access mental health services,” also read on 15 October 2026, is an example of an official route description rather than a homemade list. It says some services in England start with a GP referral, and that some, including talking therapies and help with drug or alcohol problems, can be reached by self-referral. It also says an employer may refer someone to occupational health when the problem is stress at work. Those are routes. They are not a phone list, and they apply to the NHS in England, not to every reader of this site.
If your event is outside England, link to the public page for that place after you have read it. Do not paste England’s routes into another country’s list.
What to leave off the page
Do not copy a phone number from an old flyer, a previous website, or a social-media post. A number you have not just read on the organisation’s own page is how a directory becomes a wrong door. This site does not print numbers at all.
Do not list your own event as a support service. A walk or a community meeting is not counselling and not a crisis service. Say that in the same size type as the list. The accessibility checklist for a community event is about the room and the route, not about becoming a clinic.
Do not add a person by name, a participant story, or a photograph of someone who came to an event. You do not have their permission recorded here, and a directory is not a place for it.
How often to look again
Open every link on a schedule you can keep. For a short community list, once a month is a practical start; write the month on the page, as this note does. If the page has moved, the offer has changed, or the site no longer describes that area, delete the entry or rewrite it from the new page. Acas, in guidance cited on the workplace note, makes a related point about adjustments: what works now may not work later. A directory has the same problem.
When not to publish a list
Do not publish a directory if nobody is named to recheck it. A single blog post that freezes last year’s services is worse than a link to the organisation’s own page. Point readers to the public page you have just read, and to the date. Wording that avoids turning a neighbour into a case file is in respectful language for mental health conversations. This topic’s page is Resources.
