Helping Helen Austin

Helen Austin is a legend. She has founded and runs the At Your Cervix  Twitter account, offering peer support to women who find cervical screening difficult.  She is a writer, activist and advocate, campaigning against male violence.  She is also a committed Christian.  Helen shares openly and honestly online about her journey recovering after she was raped by strangers in 2007.  She also has various life-limiting chronic health conditions that have left her seriously unwell and prevent her working. She is an amazing woman and a shero to many of us.  She has recently developed a series of health problems which have triggered serious trauma responses and she is struggling to cope.  While it would be great if the NHS systems were adequate for traumatised people, they really are not and it would take months, if not years, for Helen to access NHS therapy that she really needs ASAP. 
 
I have set up this crowdfunding campaign to raise money for Helen to see a specialist trauma therapist. Helen has found a local therapist who she has confidence in and she is hoping to begin sessions with them.  The cost of this will be £65 per session and she will likely need at least 12 sessions.  Some people close to Helen have offered to contribute towards this, but I know that lots of us within Helen’s online community would like the opportunity to support her at this time.  Any additional money beyond the target that is reached will be kept in case she needs additional sessions (if she doesn’t need these, the remaining money will be donated to Nottingham Rape Crisis ).  The target includes money to cover GoFundMe’s fees.
 
You can find Helen on Twitter HERE  and her blog is HERE . My name is Natalie Collins and I am organising this campaign because I think Helen is marvellous.  You can contact me on Twitter HERE , my work website is HERE  if you would like to know more about me, and you can email me [email redacted]o.  Thank you so much for considering supporting this campaign!