In episode 344 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Chris Hemmings.

Chris is a published author, mental health advocate and charity founder.

Chris is the Founder of two organisations in the men’s mental health space: M-Path and Men’s Therapy Hub.

Chris set up M-Path first in 2014, which is an organisation designed to actively and compassionately engage men and boys in their own experience of existence and encourage them to take charge of their well-being.

After several years, Chris stepped away from the day-to-day running of M-Path to set up Men’s Therapy Hub in 2019, which connects men with male therapists in the UK who are passionate about working with male clients, ensuring those men receive tailored support from professionals who understand the unique challenges men face.

M-Path are an organisation we came across through an article by a young man called Josh Sargent in The Guardian called ‘I’m a teenager who was lured into the manosphere. Here’s how to reach young men like me’. Josh referenced M-Path amongst several other organisations who are doing great work in the men’s space.

M-Path provides men’s mental health, emotional wellbeing & masculinity programmes designed to drive inclusion and allyship within organisations of all sizes.

In this episode we discuss the work M-Path and MTH do in the men’s space, Chris’s journey to entering this space and the impact those organisations have had in the years since their inception.

For Chris’s mental health journey, we focus on several parts of his life which provided severe mental health difficulties.

The first was when his father died when Chris was in his early 20s. After a 3-4 month period, he came close to addiction, and he left his job as a BBC journalist and embarked on a recovery journey.

It was around this time that he also discovered the statistics around male suicide in the UK.

We then talk about another period of grief when one of his best friends died from cancer in 2019, and how he navigated that alongside his mental health.

We discuss all of this, his recovery, and how he turned these experiences into a vehicle for change with Men’s Therapy Hub and becoming a qualified BACP therapist in 2022.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Men's Therapy Hub here: https://menstherapyhub.co.uk/.

You can find out more about M-Path here: https://m-path.co.uk/.

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In Part 2 of journalist Niamh Hughes' journey, we discuss her diagnosis of Congenital Hemiplegia and how she managed it from being a young child, through to adolescence and adulthood.

We explore how her acceptance of it came alongside her acceptance of herself as a person, and so many other challenges.

We also talk about the normalisation of disabilities more widely and what still needs to change going forward to support disabled people, wherever they are on the spectrum and whatever disability they may have, physical or mental.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Niamh's work here.

You can follow Niamh on social media below:

• Instagram

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In episode 343 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Niamh Hughes.

Niamh is a freelance journalist, producer, presenter and voiceover artist.

Niamh also happens to have a disability called Congenital Hemiplegia, which is a form of unilateral cerebral palsy. The disability only affects the right side of her body, so she can’t use her right hand and has to type with one hand.

Prior to going freelance, Niamh worked for many years at the BBC and worked as a reporter and producer on the BBC’s accessibility outlet and brand, Access All, then called BBC Ouch.

In Part 1 of this bumper episode, we chart Niamh’s journalism journey and how she was inspired to get involved in it by previous podcast guest Izzie Clarke!

We then discuss how she got her foot in the door at the Beeb, the various roles she's done in her very impressive career so far, including BBC Ouch, Newsnight's 'The 100 Women' programme, BBC News, her decision to leave the Beeb in March 2025 and the challenges of going freelance.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Niamh's work here.

You can follow Niamh on social media below:

• Instagram

Support Us:

• Patreon
• PayPal
• Merchandise