Blog Archives - Touchstone

Launch of Remembering What’s Forgotten Digital Exhibition

February 12th marked the launch of the brilliant Remembering What’s Forgotten’s digital exhibition! The exhibition, co-ordinated by Synergi-Leeds and Words of Colour, captures inspiring narratives of 60 people, as a creative response to 50 years of mental health and racial inequalities in Leeds. The aim of the exhibition is to champion unheard community and lived experience narratives to tackle the overrepresentation of Black and South Asian men detained under

2025-02-13T16:39:33+00:0013th February 2025|Blog|

Trustee

We are recruiting brand new Trustees to join our brilliant board of Trustees at Touchstone! Touchstone is a dynamic and innovative mental health charity based in Leeds, offering 40 mental health and wellbeing services to over 10,000 people a year across Yorkshire, with a strong focus on diversity and inclusion. A multi-award-winning organisation, Touchstone is currently national winner of the Investors in People UK Employer of the Year -

2025-01-28T14:54:12+00:0028th January 2025|Blog, News, Vacancies|

My Journey from Service User to Peer Support Worker

The value of lived experience and peer support is integral to all of our work at Touchstone. Martin, a former Service User at Touchstone, has kindly shared his journey to becoming a Peer Support Worker at Touchstone below... Where to begin with this rollercoaster (in a positive way) of a journey through Touchstone? So here goes! I came through the service in 2022 with CST (Community Support Team) after

2025-01-28T10:21:32+00:0027th January 2025|Blog, Peer Support|

Holiday Opening Hours

During the holiday period, Touchstone's Central Office's opening and closing times will be as follows: From 1pm on 24th December (Christmas Eve) the office will be closed. The office will remain closed on the 25th December (Christmas Day), 26th December (Boxing Day) and the 27th December. We will then re-open on 30th Dec at 9am-5pm and close on 31st December at 3pm and on January 1st (New Year's Day).

2024-12-18T16:36:10+00:0018th December 2024|Blog, Christmas, Holidays|

Winter Wellbeing Booklets 2024

Winter can be a challenging time for many of us. If you need support over the festive break, there are places that can help. Touchstone have put together Winter Wellbeing booklets for Leeds, Wakefield and Kirklees. They contain information about mental health support, domestic violence and abuse support, other key support, free community meals, food, housing, and energy support, and more. Please click on the links below to

2024-12-12T13:18:31+00:0012th December 2024|Blog, Christmas, Crisis support, Mental Health, Winter|

Touchstone Named 2nd Most Inclusive Employer in the UK by Inclusive Companies Awards

Touchstone has been named the 2nd Most Inclusive Employer in the UK in the prestigious national Inclusive Companies Awards 2024. The Inclusive Top 50 Employers is a definitive list of UK-based organisations that successfully promote inclusion across all protected characteristics. This outstanding achievement reflects Touchstone’s passion and drive to create a truly inclusive, engaged and supported workforce, representing the diverse local communities we work with. This award builds on

2024-12-05T16:17:51+00:003rd December 2024|Awards, Blog, Recruitment and Inclusion|

Islamophobia Awareness Month

November marks Islamophobia Awareness month, an important month in the Touchstone calendar. This month shines a light on the Islamophobia experienced by Muslim communities across the UK and the globe and unites many in the fight against it. Rise in Hate In recent times, many in diverse Muslim communities, as well as other minority communities, including refugees and asylum seekers, have experienced a general rise of hate, ignorance, fear

2024-12-05T16:17:58+00:0028th November 2024|Blog, Equality and Diversity, Faith and religion|

Evaluation of Recruitment and Inclusion Project with West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership

Since 2022, Touchstone have been working with the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (WYHCP) to lead a Recruitment and Inclusion Project. This project aims to improve the inclusivity of recruitment and retention processes in three West Yorkshire NHS Mental Health Trusts. As the project comes to an end this year, the team, Emilie Akselsen (Project Coordinator at Touchstone) and Sonya Robertshaw (Workforce Lead for the WYHCP), have written

2024-09-24T11:43:48+01:0024th September 2024|Blog, Recruitment and Inclusion|

World Suicide Prevention Day 2024

The theme for this year’s World Suicide Prevention Day on Tuesday 10th September is “Changing the Narrative”. 1 in 5 of us will have thoughts about suicide in our lifetime and 15 people sadly pass away by suicide every day in the UK. Each death has a huge impact on our communities and yet many of us struggle to talk about it. Yorkshire-based mental health charity Touchstone wants to help change

2024-09-06T11:37:33+01:0021st August 2024|Blog, World Suicide Prevention Day|

Touchstone’s Statement On Far-Right Violence in the UK

The racist and Islamophobic violence we are seeing up and down the country is horrifying. As the streets of our neighbourhoods and community spaces, our libraries and advice centres, are threatened and targeted, the places we call home have been made unsafe for many in our communities. In particular, racially minoritized people, Muslims, and people with experiences of the migration system have been enormously impacted by this violence. An

2024-08-08T15:13:11+01:008th August 2024|Blog, News|

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