Back in May, Leeds Pride announced with a heavy heart that its 15th birthday celebrations would be put on hold until 2021. The decision prioritised the health, safety and wellbeing of communities, volunteers and participants, and we can’t wait for May next year to roll around so we can hopefully all party in person! In the meantime, Partners in Pride is putting on #LeedsVirtualPride for 2020. It’s a virtual celebration
November 16-24th is national HIV Testing Week and Touchstone held a testing session with our partners Skyline on 20th November for our BAME service users and staff. Our CEO, Alison Lowe and Operations Director, Arfan Hanif led the way in showing commitment to being tested and the video of their test is here and on all this on our social media platforms. https://youtu.be/MiGc9-bICEk HIV Testing Week seeks to promote
NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care have announced the launch of new community-based clinics to support non-pregnant women who have undergone Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), with Leeds being chosen to host the clinic for the North of England. The funding has come from NHS Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group and the service will be delivered by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, working alongside Touchstone who will provide
We are really excited to announce the launch of a new service in Leeds, Your Space, which will start on the 1st April 2019. The new service will deliver and promote a range of activities, awareness campaigns and signposting for people who live in LS8, LS9, LS10 and LS11. We will work with individuals and communities to develop and identify the tools, skills and know-how to live happy, healthy lives,
THE WELL-BEAN CRISIS CAFÉ – HOPE IN A CRISIS BLOG: FEBRUARY 2019 - THE WELL-BEAN CRISIS CAFÉ IS NOW OPEN TWO EXTRA NIGHTS @ TOUCHSTONE HOUSE IN BEESTON (Written by Matthew Hall – Crisis Support Worker at WBC) The Well-Bean Café (WBC) is now open a further two nights in the south of Leeds at Touchstone House, Beeston on Tuesday and Wednesdays. Since November 2016, we have been open at
Touchstone, in partnership with Leeds Survivor Led Crisis Service, is building on the success of the Well-Bean café in Lincoln Green, with the opening of a second café in South Leeds later this month. The Lincoln Green centre, close to St James’ Hospital, has had 4,000 people through its doors since opening in November 2016. Now the two mental health charities are extending the service to a second location at
As part of our Celebrating Age ‘Interwoven Histories’ project, Pavilion and Touchstone's BME Dementia Service partnered with Leeds Irish Health and Homes’ CHIME Art Group to deliver a three part workshop focusing on the groups ‘first impressions’ of Leeds when many of them migrated to England from Ireland. Prior to the workshops, Teresa who runs the CHIME group had encouraged everyone to write about, draw and collect photos and objects
Jim Leyland (Touchstone's Operations Director – Inclusion) talks about the work Touchstone does to ensure adequate safeguarding for our clients and their communities. I am really excited in Safeguarding Week to share the work we have been doing at Touchstone with Leeds Safeguarding Adults Board. We were asked to contribute a service user voice to the new Leeds Safeguarding Adults policy and procedure. Colleagues from the board, including the chair of
As part of part of Touchstone’s BME Dementia Service’s on-going partnership with Pavilion, poet Ian Duhig hosted two workshops with the Cha Da Cup group who regularly attend Touchstone on Mondays to exercise, share food, meet with friends and get involved in lots of different activities. The workshops have been a fantastic celebration of food, culture and personal stories and have resulted in the group poem ‘The Meaning of Food’. We are pleased
Touchstone's BME Dementia Service has featured in Leeds Older People's Forum's Dementia Friendly Newsletter. The newsletter features two of the projects the BME Dementia Service are working on at present; the Interwoven Histories project in partnership with Pavilion, and our West Yorkshire Playhouse partnership in which we are writing a play about the lives and experiences of our Hamari Yaadain Dementia Cafe members, as part of their Every Third Minute