One of the major benefits of our wellbeing activities is that they take place outside of a more clinical support session, in the more relaxed environment of an activity session you can often get so much more from people. For example our friend Daniel* was able to open up so much more on a recent day trip out to a park.

Just feeding the ducks with one of our engagement workers Daniel felt able to open up much more than before, she heard so much more of Daniel's life story, simply through having a more casual conversation away from the centre. Not only was it good for him to share some of the traumas from his past, it was also good for us, the context and knowledge we gained from hearing his story helped us to better support him in the following weeks.

Daniel also visited our allotment project, growing pumpkins from seed was a completely new experience for him and something he found extremely interesting and fulfilling. The size the plants get too with their huge leaves and giant pumpkins was really impressive to witness. Just before halloween we went down to the allotment to harvest them, he at first thought that there weren’t any ready to harvest but as he pulled back the huge leaves on the plants he found more and more had grown and were ready to pick. It was really exciting for him.

These wellbeing activities do so much for helping us better support our friends out of homelessness, but they also offer a well earned escape from the stress of a hostel, the pressures of the street and gives them mental space from the many hoops and hurdles they must face to get housed.

Help us bring hope and a future for the people we support. 

*name changed to protect our friends identity