You may have seen registered social worker Scotty Harvey sitting on the side of the road with his brightly painted car and a sigh saying “You ok bro, stop 4 a yarn.”

Scotty has been travelling around New Zealand offering his services to anyone brave enough to pull over for a chat.

“I stick out in the middle of nowhere and I sit there and wait for someone to come in and engage about their mental health or any issues that are going on in their life,” he says.

“I did my big trip to the South Island in December, I was away for four and a half weeks.

“I spoke with 42 people the whole trip on different things from drugs and alcohol to sitting there and having lunch with someone at a motel because they had no one else to have lunch with.

Scotty Harvey says this service is needed. Photos supplied.

“It shows you that this type of support is needed.

“Not everyone goes to an office. A lot of males will not go to an office, especially the truck drivers because they can’t get the time off work and the hours are only from nine to five at the doctor or community mental health.

“I’ve decided to go to the community and sit in the areas where whoever it is can park their car or truck up and get the support that they need.

“The truckies can stop in their half an hour break and then they’re not losing money, they’re not getting into trouble with their employees.

The brightly coloured car doesn't go unseen. Photos supplied.

“Then they’re not going to be out on the road in their cab overthinking which so many of them do.”

Scotty says he's averaging about three to four people a day.

“That’s busier than what I was when I was working full-time.”

“On Tuesday, I was over in the Waikato at 9.30am and I finished at five.

“I sat there all of those hours.”

Scotty has gone all over the country. Photos supplied.

Scotty says even if people don’t stop they see the signs and his car and it starts a conversation between the people in the passing car about mental health.

At one point, Scotty says he was parked up for five hours and had eight people come up to him and talk.

“It’s a massive commitment,” Scotty says as he works unpaid for the good of the community.

“It’s needed and not everybody can get to an office, a lot of people won’t go to community mental health.

Scotty says he's amazed and proud of the people who are brave enough to pull over for a chat. Photos supplied.

“When you’re unwell you’re not going to sit in the room and wait for three of four hours to go home and take a pill.

“That doesn’t help, all they want do to be spending a couple of hours just dumping all of their stuff and learning how to fix it.

“I’m not saying ‘please pull over’, I’m just sitting there as people choose if they want to pull over and they do.

“I’m doing the job that is needed.

“The people that are stopping are the amazing ones because they chose to pull over.”

Scotty is asking for sponsers to help him to continue offering this service full-time. Photos supplied.

Scotty says his goal is to do this full-time, however, he needs some financial support to continue.

“I’m waiting on the number from the government so I can apply for funding because then I can do that.

Scotty says the goal is to get a bus so that he has somewhere to stay and a form of transportation.

“The funding would get me a bus and it would help me to survive.

Scotty is busier now than he was working as a full-time social worker because more people feel comfortable to sit and chat outside of an office. Photos supplied.

“I want to be able to get paid for what I’m doing which is eight hours a day.

Scotty says he loves providing this service and that it is seriously needed.

“If someone wants to sponsor me, that would be wicked, the goal is to try and get a Toyota civilian bus which is all done up. If someone wants to sponsor that bus and put all the sponsorship around it, then absolutely.

“One side is going to have somewhere where people can write how they go through their mental health struggles, and another side will have all the sponsors that have supported me and the community.

“It isn’t just about me, it’s about the community needing help.”

He says it would also be great for when it’s raining or if people want more privacy rather than talking under an umbrella outside.

“My goal is to be a mobile social worker that can go anywhere, everywhere so that if a trucking company rings me or if there’s a disaster somewhere, I can get into my bus and just go straight there and help people.

Scotty want's to continue offering this service throughout the country full-time but needs financial support in order to do so. Photos supplied.

“Or if something happens and someone rings me, I can go ‘yep’ and sit there for a week and help those people, especially the isolated areas where there are no doctors or community mental health.”

He says the bus would be painted up like his car so it would be easy to spot.

Scotty says a man stopped and said to him that he needed to talk. The man said that he wanted to commit suicide in the next week due to being so unwell. Scotty says the man said it had taken him a while to stop and see him, even though he had been wanting to for a long time.

Another time Scotty says “I was sitting there with a lady that had been going through domestic violence for many years.”

“I had a lady stop yesterday to say ‘thank you so much for the advice that you gave me over a year ago it has got me out of emergency housing.’”

“I lady told me her story that was horrific what she and her son had been through in domestic violence that her ex-husband had put on her. She told me everything so I stood there for about an hour and then she put her name on my car which many people did.

“It would be a different story if no one was coming, then I would say okay, it’s not working, but when you’ve got so many people that I’ve seen in the last eight weeks and for the whole year it proves that a mobile social worker is needed.

Scotty says the system is broken, however, this may be a solution. Photos supplied.

“And there should be more of them.”

Scotty says the goal would someday be to have a bunch of mobile social workers who can go to the community.

“We all know that the system is broken.

“Why do we keep on replaying the same records?

“I’m trying to start a new record which is going to the community, and it is working and it’s sounding like a good record.”

Scotty says he would like to thank the community for trusting him and telling him these stories.

For more information about You Ok Bro, visit the Facebook page Uokbro NZ.