Blog by Mark Robinson - Touchstone Business Development Officer As a Business Development Officer, I spend a lot of time writing about the services that Touchstone deliver. I usually get my information from our website, quarterly reports and from phone conversations with service managers. We are doing quite a bit of work around Crisis Cafes / Safe Spaces at the moment, so I thought it would be really useful to
The third Monday of January has been awarded the gloomy name 'Blue Monday' due to a combination of post-festive blues and cold dark nights. At Touchstone, we're challenging the title by asking our amazing service users, volunteers and staff what things they do to keep well. Let's turn this Blue Monday into a You Monday! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLlqEmO83SE Important websites and numbers: West Yorkshire mental health 24/7 support line, provides confidential
Touchstone as an organisation is committed to supporting the 16 days of action to end the global violence experienced by women and girls. The campaign runs from 25th November (UN Day For the Elimination of Violence against Women) to 10th December 2021. The 16 Days of Action campaign is an important opportunity to raise awareness and call for changes at an international, national and local level to end violence against women and
Black maternal health awareness week runs from 13-18th September 2021 and is dedicated to raising awareness about the disparities in maternal outcomes for Black women and birthing people. It was founded in 2020 by Five X More [footnote 1], “a grassroots organisation committed to changing Black women's maternal health. Black Women and birthing people in the UK are four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth [footnote 2].
Touchstone is a mental health and wellbeing charity that specialises in eliminating health inequalities in underserved and marginalised communities, including Black African, Caribbean and South East Asian communities, refugees and asylum seekers, and LGBTQI+ groups across West and South Yorkshire. The Leeds-based charity not only delivers vital services to meet these groups’ mental health and wellbeing needs but uses its expertise to amplify the voices of vulnerable groups with service
Everyone has and are still going through their own Covid-19 pandemic journey. To support Sikh Elders Service Users the Team delivered over forty Wellbeing Kits during the month of April 2021. I could always sense the Service User’s loneliness and isolation during the regular phone calls I made to check up on their wellbeing. The same question “When are you opening up CDC sessions again?”, “When can we meet up
This blog is about pronouns, and it will include a game to practice using they/them pronouns. You can read our Pronouns 101 blog here to find out more about pronouns. Example of she/her pronouns: I went to see a horror film with Sarah. She jumped at all the scary bits so it’s a good job I went with her. After the film, Sarah drove us home in her car and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHahV5Ts56o Click on the video above to listen to the audio version of the below blog. What are gender identity, gender expression and biological sex? Gender identity is an individual’s sense of their own gender. Their internal sense of being a man, a woman, both, neither, something in between, or something else entirely, irrespective of their biological sex. Gender expression refers to the way a person shows their gender
To mark this years Global Day Of Parents Bradford’s Stronger Families WhatsApp wellbeing group wanted to share some reflections around ‘Good Enough’ parenting. Instead of focussing on good parenting versus bad parenting, we shone the spotlight on good enough parenting. Just like there is no such thing as the perfect child, we discussed how there is no such thing as the perfect parent, after all children aren’t born with a
This podcast is sponsored by charity technology partner Blackbaud Europe. Their fundraising CRM software supports over 1,500 charities in the UK, while JustGiving from Blackbaud powers the digital fundraising of over 26,000 good causes that have raised £4 billion since 2001. Although life is returning (somewhat) to normal, our working practices are still a grey area. Some charities continue to work from home full-time. Others are embracing the office once again.