As Baby Loss Awareness Week reaches its 20th year, a Touchstone staff member, Liz, wanted to share her experience of baby loss. Baby Loss Awareness Week is an opportunity to bring people who have been affected by losing a baby together as a community to share their experiences and feel less alone. If you would like support or to find out how to get support, please read on. Content
This World Mental Health Day, the Anti Stigma team at Touchstone's Mentally Healthy Leeds will be holding a 'Living Libraries' event to talk openly about mental health and challenge stigma around it. Hi there. My name is Stephanie Francis (but everyone knows me as Steph) and I am a Community Development Worker in the Mentally Healthy Leeds team of Touchstone, based at Cromwell Mount. Each year I work with
To mark International Day of Older Persons, which was on Saturday 1st October, our Sikh Elders Service have shared a blog on the ways they have been supporting and celebrating older people in the Sikh Community in Leeds this year. Last Year’s International Day of Older Persons Each year Sikh Elders Service celebrates IDOP with their service users. Last year the theme was “Linking Lives” and service users joined
Today, on Bi Visibility Day, colleagues at Touchstone have shared what bi visibility means to them. Take a look below to explore our takes on bi visibility in all its complexity. For Rachel, from our LMWS team, bi visibility means challenging the erasure of bi people and emphasising that bisexuality is always there, regardless of relationship status. This is only my experience, I can’t speak for anyone else, but
This World Alzheimers’ Month, Touchstone’s BME Dementia Service, in its 10th year, has some vital words on the importance of BME-specific support for those living with dementia and some advice on how to find support. This year marks the 10th year of Touchstone’s BME Dementia Service. As a part of marking this milestone, we featured on ITV Calendar in August to call for more funding for BME-specific support and
This blog is written by: Marion Holloway (she/her) who has hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and autism; and Ruth Armitage (they/them) who has hypermobile spectrum disorder and dyspraxia. Marion and Ruth both work in the LMWS Inclusion Team at Touchstone. What is hypermobile spectrum disorder? A hypermobile joint extends beyond the typical range of movement. In some people this is not a problem, in others it causes problematic symptoms such as
To mark World Suicide Prevention Day, our Touchstone colleague Laura has shared some key information on suicide in West Yorkshire and how to get support for anyone struggling with their mental health. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that suicide is more common in West Yorkshire than in England as a whole: 235 deaths registered by coroners as suicides in West Yorkshire in 2020, with an average of
For World Alzheimer's Month, Touchstone's Co-production Lead for the Complex Rehabilitation Project, Tristan, has written a moving piece on his relationship with his Dad, who is living with dementia. My Dad has Dementia. He was about 53 years old when he was diagnosed, I was devastated. I felt like my world was ending, when in fact it was just changing. Drastically changing, but not ending. I was around 22,
Today is Grief Awareness Day, a day mostly marked in the US but recognised and observed by some in the UK and elsewhere too. Quenby, Community Health Development Analyst at Mentally Healthy Leeds, has taken this opportunity to raise awareness around the complexity of grief and the need to make room for this in person-centred care. I’ve been thinking a lot about grief over the past year. I’ve spent
Our new Coproduction and Service User Involvement lead, Scotty, has written this blog on the power of power and the need to change unequal power dynamics in our organisations: It is very easy when working with Coproduction to go onto autopilot and become an evangelist under the pretext that everybody should understand your ethos and work this way. I forget that there is also a journey to get to a