Mental Health Awareness Week (May 21st-27th 2012)

This past week has been Mental Health Awareness Week and Choices for Life spent Thursday in Middleton Grange Shopping Centre promoting our service. We were also promoting the Time to Change campaign which focuses on removing the stigma associated with mental health issues and encouraging people to talk openly about their own. Despite the sunny weather outside we gave out a lot of interested people and got great responses to the array of information we had not just about Creative Support but about mental health on a whole and other Hartlepool based services.

There was of course a fun element to it all with two of our sessional workers putting on bunting and tablecloth printing in preparation for the Diamond Festival that will be held next weekend. This was a big hit with the kids and gave their parents a chance to chat about the service whilst they were occupied!

We'll be uploading photos of Choices for Life's big Diamond festival extravaganza which will include a large portrait of the Queen made from recycled art, circus skills, jubilee themed crafts, a banquet of food created by Service Users and staff and of course information stands. The team can't wait!

Preview of Confidence Building

Prior to the Confidence Building which starts in May a group of staff headed over to Summerhill to suss out the orienteering route and run a mini-session. It's really an amazing place where you feel as if you are in the middle of the countryside when in fact you're right in the hub of Hartlepool! We were lucky with the weather too!

Arts Club

Our Arts Club runs every Monday and is an exciting group where Service Users can come and be creative with the guidance of trained art sessional workers. We began Arts Club with taster sessions in a wide range of arts based activities from card making to working with clay. Currently the Arts Club is focused on longer projects that look at increasing Service Users confidence with a wide variety of different materials, explore how they are used and improve their skills with drawing, mark making, painting and so on. Of course we have a lot of fun in the process too!

Here are a few pictures of the amazing work they've been producing!

Day Trip to Durham

Recently we had a lovely day trip to Durham and although the weather wasn't outstanding we were able to enjoy the sights and sounds of our nearby historic city. We went on the bus and visited many different places including the Cathedral and the monthly Farmers Market! For our next day trip we're planning to head to York so if you're interested make sure to get in touch with Lucy and book a place on it.