Volunteer with The Recovery Foundation

At a glance

Causes

Mental health

Other details

Organisation type:

Charity

Geographical remit:

National - England

Objectives

Recovery Foundation is a charity established, run, and benefitting people with Lived Experience of severe mental health issues.

We work with people with the most severe experiences of mental health (schizophrenia, bi-polar, etc) including those leaving hospital. All our work sits outside statutory services (we don’t work with in-patients or people on NHS waiting lists). People leaving mental health hospital get little follow-up, and many don’t qualify for support at all. In the aftermath of a crisis, many are left alone and acutely vulnerable. When faced with overcoming and learning to live with mental health without support, people often lose hope.

This can mean relapse/return to hospital or sparking other issues (substance abuse, unemployment, social isolation, relationship breakdown, homelessness).

Driven by our community of people with Lived Experience of Mental Health, we have developed a programme of support for people with severe mental health concerns. Our main focus is to help people find, grow and sustain hope - an essential component of mental health recovery.

Activities

The Recovery Foundation run a number of peer support programmes and our programme has expanded significantly since we began in 2020.

Our groups inclulde:

Hope Groups and Hope Community – These peer support groups are delivered face to face or online. The Hope Group is a 4 week group for up to 8 people. Each week focusses on a different theme following the life of an acorn to a Mighty Oak Tree. We look at themes from crisis to coping mechanisms, how to find hope and how to give hope to others. These groups are free and include a beautiful Hope Journal to accompany the group which participants are encouraged to continue themselves in their own time on completion of the group. We have delivered our Hope Groups to over 400 participants since we started in 2020. Our average rating out of 10 from participants is 9.6. Once someone has completed our Hope Group they are given the opportunity to join our Hope Community. This includes face-to-face meet ups, workshops, training opportunities and self-care packages. Our Hope Community has been co-designed as a direct result of feedback from those attending Hope Groups. 100% of those who attend our groups would recommend our Hope Group to a friend and 45% of those who attend go on to complete the training to co-facilitate Hope Groups.
Moving Mountains – Hope for Young Minds. This is our mental health support group for young people (14-18 years). We deliver this 4 week intervention alongside established Youth Provision in the local area. We can take up to 10 young people per group and cover topics like self-worth, self-harm, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, depression and anxiety within the sessions. We currently deliver these groups with our local Princes Trust groups and in local secondary schools.
Mending Minds - A small Crisis Support group of up to 6 participants. This group meets every week on a rolling programme. Participants are welcome to bring a carer or friend to support them if they like. The group aims to help people who are really struggling with their mental health – maybe for the first time. We talk about how to cope in a crisis and look at tools we can use. We also develop a ‘crisis card’ which can be carried on their person and gives individual information to someone if they are in crisis
Rainbow Minds Matter - LGBTQIA+ Mental Health Support – this is a support group co-produced as a result of feedback from our Hope Community. We run monthly Rainbow Minds Matter support groups online.
Creative Arts Programme - Since it's inception in 2021 we have grown this into a 5-day a week programme now accessed by over 60 regulars per week. There are courses in mixed media, Journalling for Mental Health, Printing, painting and Art in Parks to name a few. The Creative Arts Programme is led by our Creative Arts Director, Angie Chapman.

We also deliver training to organisations and enjoy strong partnerships with Ingeus UK, Forward Thinking Birmingham and Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust.

No current opportunities

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