The college was recommended to me by the Recovery Hub, a leaflet I picked up from the reception desk at Foundation House.
I have attended Understanding Anxiety, Wellbeing Toolkit, Life After Discharge and Introduction to Mindfulness courses run by the Wellbeing & Recovery College. All the courses were well run with lived experience trainers and qualified trainers and helped me have a better understanding of anxiety and recovery. The mindfulness course was particularly excellent with meditations and handouts and has helped me to stay in the moment.
I have found all the courses invaluable and contributed to my improved mental health.
Mary Smith
I was introduced to the Wellbeing & Recovery College via my Employment Officer at Enable Mr. Matthew Morris.
I enrolled for the Wellbeing & Recovery College at the Redwood Centre in Shrewsbury. I underwent an Individual Learning Plan with the Wellbeing & Recovery College and filled in a form.
I underwent a Life after Discharge course at the Redwood Centre, alongside my Employment Officer, Mr. Matthew Morris, and gained a lot of knowledge with regard to mental health recovery and the people who attended were at various stages of their discharge after hospital journey. Some people had just been discharged - I was privileged to have a 16-hour distribution job which had benefitted my mental health with regard to meeting people on a regular basis in Shrewsbury Town Centre as I was socially isolated in my bungalow which Mr. Morris was aware of.
I was able to empathize with the other people on the course and found the course very positive and up-lifting. At the time I was studying "Awareness of Mental Health" NCFE certificate level 2 which had made me more aware of how people deal with mental problems and subsequently studied Nutrition and Health which made me more aware of people who suffer from eating disorders and the importance of a healthy diet.
I look forward to attending further courses in future at the Redwood Centre and have booked on the Wellbeing Toolkit and Introduction to Compassion course this year.
Thank you very much for asking me to submit details of my own personal mental health journey. I must thank Mr. Matthew Morris for all his valuable advice and support throughout my mental health journey - his support is on-going so I have had a lot of support from Mr. Morris's place of work (Enable, Shrewsbury).
I look forward to reading other students stories on the Wellbeing & Recovery College Website in the future to correlate my own experience and would also comment on your brilliant brochure.
Jane Gronning
I first became involved with the college as a student. Although I worked as an employee of the trust, I still had very low confidence and issues with public speaking. I avoided contributing to meetings at work despite having a lot of ideas. I was encouraged to step out of the background by the college and put the work I was doing with service users into a course format called Wellbeing Toolkit. I was very doubtful of my abilities and was sure I would regret ever thinking I could run a course, but the course was well attended and the feedback was excellent. I am so glad I took the plunge and made myself do it. Since running my first course in 2016 I have gone on to run many more as both a lived experience and professional trainer. I am the most confident I have ever been and I am no longer too shy to contribute to staff meetings - in fact I have been leading some meetings and my colleagues can't believe how confident I have become.