Recovery College news and events

Lightbulb Moments from the College for Mental Health Awareness 2022

With this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week focusing on loneliness, we challenged the team to remember some of their lightbulb moments - those points in time that make you stop and think; where maybe someone has said something that’s made an real impact, or you’ve seen someone else who’s struggling start to realise the benefit of sharing their thoughts and feelings with others.

Click here to find out more.

Working in partnership to define carers courses in Kingston

Kingston Adult Education have worked in partnership with SWLSTG Involvement and the Recovery College to deliver two taster sessions asking Carers to help identify topics that are most important to them.

There are 2 separate taster sessions this June, one online the other face to face to make sure they are as accessible as possible. Each session will cover:

• Understanding what happiness means to you

• Working with you to choose topics we should focus on

• Experience some techniques that will make you feel more refreshed and relaxed

• Build your resilience to help you bend to the pressures of life and not break

 Click here to find out more and for details on how to book.

Hospital Rooms is back at the Recovery College in 2022

The start of 2022 saw Hospital Rooms returning to the Recovery College to run a series of art sessions with a host of amazing artists. The flyer below gives you some idea just how diverse the sessions were. 

Missed out on our sessions?....For those who are really keen, Hospital Rooms themselves run a series of digital art session which you can book via their website here. Or, if you'd rather take part in an in-person session, there are workshops being held at the Courtauld Gallery in London. To find out more and see how to book visit their website. 

Summer School 2021 - what a success!

Once again the Recovery College teamed up with Hospital Rooms to produce a Summer School consisting of five days of art workshops, hosted by professional artists and creative groups.  These sessions were completely free and available to anyone , whether you're registered with the Recovery College or not. We now have some amazing art for our walls, students buzzing about new art techniques and ideas they've tried, and we hope to be working with the team again in the New Year.  Click here for a short showreel of the week and what our students had to say.

In May 2018 the college hosted an evening seminar on youth violence

To mark Mental Health Awareness week the College approached the Charity BLAM (black learning achievement and mental health) to run an evening seminar on the impact of youth violence.  The session was open to all, with panellists ranging from a SEN Children specialist, to a Youth Offending Team Worker and a Social Activist.

The aim of the event was to exchange ideas in tackling the trauma associated with youth violence - what support exists now and new ways to potentially approach the issue.  

Recovery College Welcomed International Visitor to Kick Start 2018

2018 was a busy year for the Recovery College, with two international visits coordinated by IMROC (Implementing Recovery through Organisational Change) looking at best practice in the UK.

January kicked off with a visit from a study group from Bulgaria, looking at best practice to set up their own Recovery College. All attendees were members of GIP-SOFIA (Global Initiative on Psychiatry). With a truly diverse group including clinical directors, peer support workers, autism association members and learning disability specialists, it was a busy day with a lot of discussion. Thankfully, having a native Bulgarian speaker on our team of trainers made a huge difference in spanning the language barrier.

“I would like to thank you for the warm welcome, the opportunity to ask all our questions and the exceptional surprise to answer us in pure Bulgarian.

 I hope that with what we have learned we will be able to "translate" the model to the Bulgarian context, and next time we will expect you and your colleagues in Bulgaria so that we can share.”

Valentina Hristakeva, Director, Global Initiative on Psychiatry-Sofia (17^th Jan, 2018)

In February we hosted a team of Psychiatrists, Researchers, Social Workers and Academics from Japan. Coordinated by IMROC, the team were here as part of a week-long UK tour of Recovery Colleges, Early Intervention groups and vocational and community services.

The group’s aim was to learn about the stages for preparation and set up of a recovery college, understanding how it sits within the infrastructure of a wider recovery-orientated organisation. This included exploring the core operational structures and policies for running a college, and participating in college courses as a student

The morning was spent covering how the Recovery College works with focus on our core principles of coproduction, self-directed learning, belief in our students and a coaching educational style This continued with a question and answer session to help our guests problem solve the issues they are experiencing. The afternoon consisted of our guests experiencing a taster session of our Coping with Stress course.

Judging by their comments we think the day went well:

“We would like to thank you for your warm welcome and very kind hospitality extended to us. We are very impressed by your innovative ways to value one's lived experience and seek to ingrain co-production into the mental health services.

 We have learned the heart of recovery college and have been encouraged to set up more recovery colleges in Japan. We really appreciate all you have done for us.”

Recovery College Study Tour Team from Japan (19th Feb, 2018)