The Mid-Essex Recovery College runs free courses and workshops that support people’s mental health recovery. The College provides a safe space for people to learn new skills, expand on existing ones, and attend courses developed to support mental health recovery. Co-production is a core feature of recovery college ethos; our courses are all co-produced by experts with lived experience of mental health, as well as individuals with professional experience of working for mental health services. All our sessions have a ‘Pass or Participate’ ethos where students can contribute as much or as little as they want when they are there.
All our courses are free to attend and open to anyone aged 18 and over who lives, work or studies in the Mid Essex area who have experienced or are experiencing mental health challenges themselves, are supporting someone else with their mental health challenges or who just want to learn more about the topics covered.
As always, we are delivering a varied timetable of courses and workshops both face to face and online.
Our courses and workshops are free and provide a safe space for people to learn new skills, expand on existing ones, and attend courses developed to support mental health recovery. Co-production is a core feature of recovery college ethos; our courses are all co-produced by experts by experience, individuals with lived experience of mental health, as well as individuals with professional experience of working for mental health services.
Courses are available to anyone aged 18 and over who have experienced or are experiencing mental health challenges themselves, who are supporting another person with their mental health challenges or who want to learn more about the topics covered.
As well as our usual courses this month we are continuing with our popular evening Bite-size courses for Wellbeing, topics covered this month are
- Creating self care routines
- Active Listening
- Identifying and Expressing personal needs
- Relaxation Breathing
- Vision Boards
We are running evening workshops that concentrate on Community Services to Support Recovery, shining a spotlight on other services within the Community that students can access, this month war are looking at
- Keeping active – how keeping active can support Mental Health recovery and what community services there are that students can access to help them become more active or to help them increase their activity
- What Libraries offer – exploring the services that Libraries offer themselves but also how they can provide a gateway to other local services
We are running a course for Carers, Caring can be challenging – Managing Difficult Emotions, We know that caring is not straight forward and presents many challenges both practical and emotional. This workshop focuses on some of the emotional challenges carers face but find it difficult to talk about. It will explore the concept of acceptance and coping with difficult emotions such as resentment and guilt.
Stigma and Mental health explore how the negative societal views around Mental Health conditions create stigma for those directly affected and for those around them such as friends, family, loved ones and the public, the effects of this and how this can be tackled
As usual courses can be booked via the website www.midessexrecoverycollege.co.uk or by emailing provide.midessexrc@nhs.net and please share this information with anyone that you think may benefit from attending one of these courses or workshops.
Published: 05 February 2024
