A WOMAN is helping to turn around the lives of others after battling for half her life against depression.

Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon will be told about the achievements of Helen Southall, who was born in Guisborough, this week when he launches a celebration day marking the work of Middlesbrough Council's Complementary Education Hospital Teaching Service.

A central feature of the celebrations is a children's art children, made possible by 31-year-old Miss Southall.

She has a temporary job as art therapy co-ordinator on the children's wards at Middlesbrough's James Cook University Hospital.

Miss Southall has recently qualified as a stage 2 teaching assistant, though her ambition is to take a degree in art psychotherapy, despite suffering two nervous breakdowns earlier in her life.

She said: "Mental health is not something that is really talked about because of the stigma attached, but there are millions who suffer silently from it, and I want to show other people that they too can get their lives back.

"If you had told me two years ago that I would be leaping out of bed every day to do a job that I love, I would not have believed you.

"Of course I have a condition that I will continue to manage, but I am living proof that everything is possible.

"I absolutely love it here. I have always wanted a job where I enjoy my work and go home thinking I have made a difference."

Miss Southall, who found her job through the national Shaw Trust charity, will use all creative means possible to engage her patients.

Faced with one child's distress at being in hospital, she made penguins out of balloons and then photographed them on adventures round the hospital.

After visiting various departments, the penguins went out of the hospital, but went back quickly because it was too cold outside.