Purpose-led. Not profit-led.
Sidekick Initiative is a nonprofit mental health and lived-experience support movement based in Portsmouth. Built from real life and real struggle, it exists to support people who feel isolated, overwhelmed, unheard or stuck.
Sidekick Initiative is not a charity brand designed in a boardroom. It started because the founder, Rob Prior, went through prison, years of mental health struggle, PTSD and CPTSD, and the long work of rebuilding, and he knew from the inside that the support he had needed was not the support most services were giving.
Now Sidekick Initiative supports people every day, through mentoring, workshops, walks, talks and challenges. We work in schools, prisons, gyms, cafés, workplaces and community rooms. Wherever the setting, the approach is the same: honest, human, structured, and rooted in lived experience.
We support people affected by addiction and recovery, alongside people navigating mental health, isolation and life after crisis. Sidekick Initiative is not a clinical or emergency service, and it is not available 24/7. When the moment is urgent, our urgent help page points to services that are.
We are nonprofit, community-first and independent. Sidekick Initiative is a non-profit community organisation currently registering as a Community Interest Company (CIC), not a registered charity.
From stuck to moving.
Sidekick Initiative is not a therapist, an app or a slogan. It is a way of showing up for people, the way we needed someone to show up for us.
Sidekick Initiative was born from lived experience. Every conversation, workshop, mentoring session, walk and challenge is delivered by people who have been through hard things and rebuilt.
Our job isn't to save anyone. It is to sit with them, listen properly, help them think clearly, and walk with them while they take the next honest step.
That's it. Everything else, the challenges, the schools work, the prison work, the walks, the talks, is built to make that happen at scale.
"His approach to addiction recovery is fresh and positive, if you're ready to engage, put the effort in and be honest with yourself and others. I'm five days clean and knowing I've got this man on my side, knowing he knows the score and really understands, makes a big difference. Not someone with no real experience talking at you from a book. However bad things may seem or feel, there's support, there's care, and there's always light at the end of the tunnel."
Rooted in Portsmouth. Built with the people who show up.
The people behind the work.
Rob Prior
Founder
Founder of Sidekick Initiative. A lived-experience mental health advocate and trained recovery mentor, teacher and speaker based in Portsmouth. Blunt when it needs to be blunt, human all the way through.
Joel McIntyre
Sidekick Initiative Team
Two-time English Light-Heavyweight Champion, boxing coach and personal trainer from Portsmouth. Fifteen years in the professional ranks taught him how to lose properly, start again and keep going when nobody is clapping. He brings that into the room with the people we work with.