VCSE Power showcase: Kirklees

Case Study for WY Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub

Third Sector Leaders Kirklees is a registered charity that provides local infrastructure support to the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector across Kirklees. We also run the accredited Volunteer Centre – matching individuals who are looking to volunteer with not-for-profit organisations in need of volunteers.

We approached the WY Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub as we wanted to provide some support to our team of Welcome Mentor Volunteers that support Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Kirklees. We had identified that volunteering in this area can be very stressful, as the client group have often experienced trauma, violence and persecution and then face difficulties and uncertainties once they arrive to a place of safety in Kirklees. Many of our Volunteers are refugees or asylum seekers themselves, so this brought the added dimension of their own lived experience. We firstly had a look at the resources on the hub website; but felt that e-learning would not be the best fit for our volunteers, many of whom have English as their second or third language. We thought an in-person group session would be the best option, and after a meeting with the clinical Leads from the Wellbeing Hub we were delighted that they offered to develop a bespoke workshop specific to our needs. After discussing the outline for the workshop, we then met a second time to go through the proposed content, the WY Wellbeing Hub team were excellent at listening to our needs and were able to tweak the format and content to ensure it suited our audience.

We received some really positive feedback from the Volunteers attending the session and as a result, we are now holding regular informal social meetings where the Volunteers can offer each other peer support as well as additional opportunities to speak with staff. We are also holding a follow up session with the Wellbeing Hub to explore practical wellbeing techniques that the Volunteers can implement in their everyday life.

Following on from the session for Volunteers, we also worked with the hub to develop a workshop for Staff and Volunteer Team Leaders who are supporting people in crisis. We had a wide range of community groups and charities attending including Food Banks, Mental Health Charities, those supporting Homelessness, Alcohol and Drug Addiction, Older people, People with disabilities, families in poverty etc. Again, the workshop content was co-produced with us to ensure it met the needs of the charity and community sector and recognised any good practice that was already taking place. The session explored what trauma is and how we process it, as well as healthy and unhealthy behaviours in managing trauma. We also explored boundaries and how difficult it can be to hold a healthy balance between caring and over-involvement with service users.

It has been a hugely valuable partnership with the hub, they have provided our sector with tools to better understand trauma and techniques for looking after ourselves and our team, when we are looking after others.

Becky Bracey, Volunteer Services and Safeguarding Lead at Third Sector Leaders Kirklees

https://tslkirklees.org.uk/

You can find out more about our Welcome Mentor Volunteer Programme here: https://tslkirklees.org.uk/get-help-with/welcome-mentors/

And some of the work they do: https://tslkirklees.org.uk/category/tsl-kirklees-news/current-projects/welcome-mentors/

Third Sector Leaders (TSL)

TSL Kirklees Wellbeing Experiences: at TSL Kirklees, we have been co-ordinating a menu of fully-funded Wellbeing Experiences since lockdowns started to ease last summer. These are provided by local third sector organisations and are available to any health and public sector teams or other front-line workers, including VCSE workers and volunteers. They give a group of colleagues the opportunity to have some time out, focus on their wellbeing (and hopefully take some ideas back into the workplace), connect as a team and do something different, whilst finding out about and supporting a local charitable organisation. These have been very successful and have been accessed by groups from Kirklees Council, NHS, Locala, local schools, West Yorkshire Police, Mountain Rescue and a wide variety of VCSE groups. We are coming to the end of the second round of funding and the project is about to be refunded.

TSL Kirklees Wellbeing Experiences case study

There are lots of charity and community groups doing great work across Kirklees to support people’s mental health and wellbeing and tackle loneliness and isolation. Lots of groups had to quickly change their models to be able to continue to support people during the Covid pandemic and started offering online sessions and on-demand video content, or at-home activity packs – some of which have continued since. Many of the organisations work together and partner on projects. Some are also part of a commissioned Community Adult Mental Health service in Kirklees, called Working Better Together (Working Better Together Flyer)

Here are a few examples:

New Charity, Aspire Creating Communities

Runs social groups for isolated older people. Aspire are currently running a fundraising campaign to help them raise urgent funds to continue their services, if you would like to donate, follow this link which will take you to their just giving page.

New social enterprise, Umbrella Yoga:

Who make yoga accessible for people with additional needs and bring communities together through yoga to improve people's physical and mental wellbeing. They have just won the Social Enterprise Yorkshire and Humber Start-Up Award.

Visit the Umbrella Yoga youtube channel

Visit the Umbrella Yoga video resources

Support to Recovery (S2R)

S2R offer a rance of creative, wellbeing and outdoor activities that promote positive mental health and wellbeing.

Click here to see Support to Recovery video resources

Click here to visit Support to Recovery Facebook page

Support to Recovery offer wellbeing packs: These Wellbeing Packs are designed around the 5 Ways to Wellbeing, which is a nationally recognised initiative that aims to keep you fit and healthy by concentrating on 5 key elements. Each S2R Wellbeing Pack will have different tips, tricks and activities for you to try including nature-based and craft ideas. To find our more, click here to go to the Support to Recovery, wellbeing packs page.

Growing Works

Growing Works nurture health lives outdoors through a variety of projects.

Growing Works case study

Hoot Creative Arts

Hoot Creative Arts support mental health through a variety of arts and creative activities. They are also the health and wellbeing lead for Kirklees Year of Music 2023.

Kirklees Year of Music: music, health and wellbeing strand.

Platform 1

Platform 1 offers a range of counselling and support services from their base at ‘Platform 1’ at Huddersfield Train Station