Our aim is to reduce the stigma around mental health, as well as educating people on where to go to access help and support. Ultimately, we want to help young people and their families to access the support that they require which will hopefully prevent them from entering in to a mental health crisis. We want to eradicate prejudice behaviours and to challenge assumptions through conversations between those with lived experiences and those without, therefore encouraging a mutual journey of discovery, where learning can take place on both sides.
Talk Out Loud
‘Talk Out Loud’ is a weekly pop-up provision for young people and parents on their way home from school, with the aim to raise awareness of mental health, engage people in creative therapeutic activities to encourage people to talk, and to offer support, guidance, and signposting. We serve hot chocolate, milkshake, cake, and sweets, and run activities to engage people in conversation. We signpost people to various services where needed and offer a listening ear as well as helpful advice and guidance where appropriate.
Detached Youth Work
We are connecting and establishing relationships with local young people through detached youth work on the Comberton estate. We base ourselves at the local park one evening a week with drinks and snacks - refereeing football matches, listening to music and anything else that the young people want to do. Overall, we want to engage with young people who probably wouldn’t engage anywhere else and have a positive influence on them and how they behave socially.
Social Well-Being Café
We run a café once a week for the local community to come in and chat, as well as use our laptops and Wi-Fi to apply for work, write CV’s, get support with filling out disability and benefits applications and paperwork as well as anything else that they might need help with. We offer mental health support for those who come along and signpost to other services that would also benefit them.
Boxfit
Exercise is a fantastic way of improving mental health, so we offer a Boxfit session once a week that is accessible to everyone in the community. In the warmer months this takes place outside in the sunshine as we all know the sun has a positive impact on mood and mental health!
Young Leaders
Some of the young people we engage with were very keen to help set up and run groups with us and so a group of Young Leaders began! They help to plan our groups and events and act as role models to the other young people. Our aim is to help develop their knowledge, skills and understanding in youth and community work so that they may, if they wish, join us as youth and community workers in the future.
