The most important element of Dorset Pier Mental Health is comfortability; ensuring that you feel safe and supported is the top priority of our space. One of the things that I have come to realize is that mental health services are often shrouded in mystery and designed in a way that sets the therapist up as ‘the expert’. Being a good therapist, in my opinion, means that you are honoring that the client has the capacity within themselves to make change; the therapist’s job is to help them access this strength. After working for a number of years in child welfare and crisis response, it became evident to me that access to mental health services continues to be a barrier for a number of people in our community. Additionally, access to services specifically designed to maximize comfortability and offer alternative therapeutic interventions, such as animal therapy, was a missing piece altogether.