Everyone Has Great Ideas! Report from the Leeds Co-production Conference
On 6th July 2017, Touchstone hosted Leeds’ second coproduction conference. This time to coincide with national coproduction week. The aims of the conference were 3 fold: To shine a light on the existing examples of coproduction in the region To introduce more people to the “I Statements” and their place in mental
Annual Information Report: Who did Touchstone support in 2016/17?
On 31 March 2017 there were over 1500 active service users accessing Touchstone services. This suggests that on any given day we have around 1500 live service users across Touchstone. Half of Touchstone’s live service users come from BME backgrounds. All Touchstone services have a BME service user profile above
WHO KNOWS BEST? WE DO!
The 'We' is our service users and they always know what is best. This has been reinforced by what our service users think and say about Touchstone in this years annual service user survey results. The key headlines are: Overall 95% of service user respondents indicated that Touchstone is an
Free Hugs Day
The first Saturday of July is International Free Hugs Day. Maybe you've seen someone in your town centre holding up a hand-made sign that says "Free Hugs" - and delivering on that promise by hugging anyone that approaches them. Quite possibly you've already seen themusic video below, that shows the
After the NHS – a CHS?
The election is finally behind us. The Labour Party had most of the eye-catching policies – and community businesses could provide the next big idea, writes our guest blogger Bill Graham from New Wortley. (This blog was originally published on the Power to Change website). One of the ideas was to
Wellbeing and Befriending scheme
Steph Lewis from the Community Development Service explains how and why a Winter Wellbeing project has turned into a service that's offered all year round. In January 2017 ELHFA and CDS services jointly started the Winter Wellbeing Project which was based on the very successful Winter Wellbeing Café run during