To mark World Poetry Day, we're sharing a poem by Adam Lowe, written in the street slang language of Polari. The poem (and accompanying glossary were featured as Poem of the Week in The Guardian on 12th October 2015. Aunt nell the patter flash and gardy loo! Bijou, she trolls, bold, on lallies slick as stripes down the Dilly. She minces past the brandy latch to vada dolly dish for
To celebrate LGBT History Month in February 2016, Touchstone will profile a significant figure from LGBT history each week. Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. Between the two World Wars, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals.
John Halsall from the Community Development Service presents the second in a series of data blogs - examining the meaning behind reports and statistics from various sources. You can read his first blog here. In January 2016 the Health & Social Care Information Centre published two chapters in the Health Survey for England, 2014: Chapter 2: Mental health problems Chapter 3: Attitudes towards mental illness This short article highlights
By Geraldine M Monday 8th February 2016 is the day many people will be saying ‟Gong xi fa cai” (pronounced, roughly, ‟gong she fars eye”) - the Chinese greeting for ‟Happy New Year” - meaning ‟Be happy, get rich”. …to which the response is often ‟Hong bao na lai” (‟hong bow na lie”) which means ‟Where’s my red envelope?” since a red envelope with money inside is a
Recording of live radio interview of Stephanie L. and Nazia H. on Fever FM to promote positive mental health among Muslim communities in Leeds on World Religion Day 2016.
To celebrate LGBT History Month in February 2016, Touchstone will profile a significant figure from LGBT history each week. Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk began his tenure by sponsoring a civil rights bill that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Thursday 4th February marks World Cancer Day, our Business Development Director Jess shares some of her thoughts and experiences of cancer and the support we can all offer: On the 4th February we mark World Cancer Day and I wanted to write about some people I know who have been affected by the illness. Firstly, my hike club friend, who I met through a neighbour. She was in her
To coincide with National Story Telling Week (30 Jan - 6 Feb) one of our therapists Louise A has written a piece on the therapeutic benefits of writing for wellbeing: Writing for wellbeing When we feel upset, low or anxious we can often feel the urge to talk about it, whether that is with someone close to us or within a talking therapy. Sometimes though, we may not be able
2014–2015 has been a busy and exciting year for Touchstone in Kirklees. We have continued our community mental health advocacy work and have now integrated the new Independent Mental Health Advocacy (IMHA) service into our existing team. We have taken on new staff, embarked on specialised training and increased our service activity by almost 300%. Our staff and volunteers have really embraced these changes and we are proud of the
The tagline isn’t entirely correct – so I’ll start by apologising for that. Very quickly, something about me. I’ve been a housing support worker here at Touchstone for less than a year but I’ve worked with people in crisis for about five years. It amazes me how commonplace dissociative issues seem to be, yet there’s so little awareness of them. So I thought I’d write something about them here. I