People who are experiencing loneliness often find it difficult to make friends because they find it easier to withdraw from social activities leaving them feeling sad and alone.
Within our day to day life everyone needs meaningful contact with others to feel safe, loved and cared for. When you don’t have this it is normal to feel lonely. Being lonely can have a negative impact on mental health and lead to difficulties such as anxiety or depression. Loneliness can be found anywhere.
While everyone can experience loneliness differently it often results in social isolation, feeling left out, unheard or not belonging. If loneliness is not reduced it will eventually impact on our emotional and physical well-being.
We are supporting members of our community who really need our support, each weekday we run a number of events to reduce the feelings of loneliness and social isolation which in turn is linked to anxiety and depression.
But we have found an open community living room space isn't always the right approach and that this can hold people back on their journey to good mental health. Hence the need to develop a well-being room that can be used at the point of crisis as a safe space.
Other community members and members of the public will also be able to use this space to host community sessions to support the community.
The safe space will offer a place to support people locally who need support with wellbeing, mindfulness, mental health awareness, health groups and a safe place.
To make this happen we need to reconfigure the back of our unit and relocate the disabled toilet to create a safe space that can be worked for one to one counselling, support groups, and well-being that really support the good mental health of our community.