Warrington community coming together from the comfort of their own homes

The service provides a safe and welcoming community space, which supports local people living with a range of mental health conditions, whether mild to moderate, complex, challenging or long-term.

The centre closed its doors on 17 March in line with government advice on social distancing. Many of the people we support live alone and coming to the service gets them out the house, gives their day some structure and helps them to meet other people and make friends. These are all really important when you are living with a mental health condition.

In an attempt to reduce social isolation and with the help of the grant, the service has taken its groups and activities online, there has already been online quizzes, bingo and exercise sessions.

The grant, awarded by Cheshire Community Foundation as part of the Foundation’s Covid-19 Response Grants Programme, has enabled the service to continue reaching out to its 70 regular attendees. The service now has a full timetable of group activities, with something happening every day.

Cheshire Community Foundation raises funds to support hundreds of charities and voluntary groups across the whole of Cheshire and Warrington. Using apps like Zoom, the grant is being used by Warrington Day Service to provide:

• A Sunday lunch club – allowing people to cook and eat together virtually. The service deliver basic ingredient to the homes of people we support attending the group, and do an online demonstration during the session, where everyone can cook along at the same time.
• Exercise classes, delivered using basic exercise equipment provided by the service.
• The service are delivering books to the people we support, encouraging them to get involved in a virtual book club.

The activity timetable not only includes ideas organised by Support Workers at the service, but ideas thought of by people who use the service. This includes a hilarious game of Play Your Cards Right and an impromptu karaoke singalong.

Service Manager, Claire Jones said: “We are doing our best to keep life as normal as possible for the people we support. The Coronavirus pandemic is having a significant impact upon services like ours and it is likely to continue for the next few months. Keeping positive and managing the wellbeing of the people using our services is vital to us.

“Day centre members tell us that the sessions are the highlight of their day and we are enjoying running them as much as they are enjoying taking part.

“The grant will allow us to continue running our online virtual groups, the range of activities we can provide will keep spirits high and help the people we support to overcome the challenges that many of them are facing due to the government lockdown regulations."