"Sometimes people just need to be heard" Meet the team supporting older people's mental health across Cardiff and the Vale

13th May 2026

The Mental Health Services for Older People (MHSOP) service provides care and support to patients aged 65 years and over living within Cardiff and the Vale with mental health difficulties. 

This Mental Health Awareness Week, hear more about the team who support these individuals every day. 

Madelaine Watkins Clinical Nurse Specialist for Psychosis, Helen Perriam Mental Health Care Advisor and Tim Nicholls Clinical Nurse Specialist for Dementia are part of the specialist team championing an individualised, person-centred approach to mental health care. 

“My life experiences led me to becoming a nurse in mental health” Tim says, “I’d had experience supporting someone close to me through mental health struggles and I found it rewarding to help them live their life as best they could.” 

“I went into the MHSOP service because I wanted an interesting and fulfilling career, which it certainly is. I wanted to improve people’s lives as best as possible” Helen says. 

“In my case, I noticed a gap in the services offered to patients experiencing voices and visions” Madelaine says. “The main approach for these patients was offering medication, and I wanted patients to have a more of a choice when it came to their interventions, like psychological and psychosocial support.” Madelaine piloted her role of Clinical Nurse Specialist for Psychosis in the Health Board six years ago focusing on these principles and hasn’t looked back since. 

Each member of the team feels privileged to get to know their patients and play a part in each of their individual healing processes. “It’s extremely rewarding to build that therapeutic relationship with patients and be truly trusted by people” Tim says.  

“The most rewarding part of my work is facilitating practices such as Open Dialogue. This involves working with people in crisis or severe distress and their families and friends, or ‘Networks’. We encourage open communication and explore different ways of understanding experiences together” Madaleine says. “People don’t experience distress in isolation, it almost always impacts those around them, so this practice is a great way to support this wider network of people.”  

The team are supportive and compassionate to each other each day, which helps their own wellbeing in work. In their spare time, they do things like spend time in nature, attend concerns, spend time with family and get involved in activism.  

Madelaine, Helen, Tim and the team are strong advocates for authentic human connection and emphasise the importance of being ‘alongside’ someone in their mental health struggles, rather than trying to ‘fix’ them. 

“To anyone who wants to support others, the one important thing you can do is to listen with empathy” Madelaine says, “sometimes people just need to be genuinely heard, understood and have someone alongside them during dark times.”  

To find out more about the MHSOP service, please visit Mental Health Services for Older People - Cardiff and Vale University Health Board. 

Mental health struggles can feel overwhelming, but help is always within reach. The 111 Press 2 and Seibiant Sanctuary services are there for urgent times of need and mental health crisis, but there are lots of other services which operate in Cardiff and Vale: Support organisations and charities - Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.