One of our brilliant volunteers explains how and why she got involved and the benefits that volunteering has had for her. Before I started my volunteering with Touchstone I just had my son and was unemployed and unaware of the direction I wanted to go in life. I lacked so much confidence due to having no academic qualifications and past experiences. I really did not know what I wanted
Lynne’s Story “Friends had noticed that I wasn’t ‘me’ … sadly many also identified with my feelings but had felt that it was just something that had to be ‘weathered’. I had no idea why I was feeling like I was; I was sad, crying, upset and generally very emotional. I tried on numerous occasions to ‘pull myself together’ but these negative feelings were so overpowering I decided to visit
Goal Setting In Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), setting goals is an important and helpful part of therapy but is something that you may be able to start before your therapy begins. Very often, when people first start to think about goals in therapy they may say things like: “I want to feel happy” “I want to get back to my old self” “I don’t want to fee anxious” Of course,
Here’s some of the feedback we got from participants on our Sadee Smile diabetes awareness courses aimed at the South Asian communities in Leeds. All the clients referred to below are Pakistani adults, aged 45-60 with either Type II Diabetes or Prediabetes. The clients with Diabetes were either taking medication or aiming to control the condition through diet. People said that they chose to attend the course in order to
In the fourth of our posts for Dementia Awareness Week 2016, Jane Mackay from Kirklees Advocacy Service talks about the steps her team have made to be supportive of people living with dementia and why it's so important to her. Like most other people, my family has had experience of dementia, my Gran first and then my step-Gran, both within a relatively short space of time a few
In our third blog post for Dementia Awareness Week 2016, Amina Ditta talks about her role as a Dementia Champion within one of Touchstone's staff teams. As a Dementia Champion I have been trying to deliver Dementia Awareness sessions to the team at Kirklees. This has proven to be much more challenging that I initially anticipated. Colleagues conduct a variety of role where they are out in the community
Regular eating Many people who feel low in mood or feel anxious struggle to maintain a regular pattern of eating. For some people, their appetite reduces and people may skip meals or reduce their food intake. Others may experience an increase in appetite or a tendency to eat for comfort but find that they become self-critical as a result. Others may carry on eating but only eat ‘junk’. These changes
On International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, we look at the chequered history of the ongoing quest for equal rights and legal recognition. 1533 - During the reign of Henry VIII, all sexual intercourse between two men was made illegal, punishable by death. Between 1533 and 1558 the law was repealed and then reinstated twice. 1785 - Jeremy Bentham published an essay arguing for the decriminalisation of sex
In the second of our blog posts for Dementia Awareness Week 2016, a carer talks about his family's experiences from the time of their father's diagnosis with dementia to the time of his death. My father was diagnosed with Dementia/Alzheimer in 2001, we as a family didn't really know what this meant. Our beloved father passed away 5 years ago. Before the diagnosis, both the doctors and us thought dad
In the first of a series of posts from staff and service users for Dementia Awareness Week 2016, Touchstone's Arfan Hanif talks about the Dementia Champions group within the organisation. In 2015 Touchstone, as part of its ‘Working to become Dementia Friendly’ accreditation, set up the Dementia Champions group which represents staff from all of our sites. The Champions have started to play a critical role in terms of