December Round Up

Welcome to our regular round-up, collected by our Community Development Team from their work around Devon. Here you’ll find items that support your personal recovery, volunteering, jobs, training courses, and research requests.

Have something you’d like us to add next time? Get in touch!

Have a wonderful Christmas 🙂

Yes, it’s that time yet again!

We hope you all have a lovely festive period and come back strong and motivated for 2025.

If you go out drinking for Christmas parties – remember to drink safe with water in-between drinks!

Also keep an eye out for people who might be alone this Christmas. Give them a call, take a doggie bag of Christmas dinner over to them, reach out through text or send them some of our resources to help them feel less alone. If you’re concerned about someone this Christmas, visit our Recovery Devon Suicide Prevention Christmas Tree in Princesshay, Exeter. The tree is adorned with our carefully designed suicide prevention resources, available for anyone to take. These resources have been co-created by individuals who have experienced their own struggles and understand what it’s like to face dark times and thoughts of suicide. They’re here to offer support and hope to anyone who might be feeling the same, especially during these challenging winter months.

Have a wonderful Christmas, however that looks for you, from the Recovery Devon team!

We have now uploaded our very informative podcast with Chronic Pain Café to our platforms Spotify and Buzzsprout

We discuss in detail the techniques and therapies that Julie and Sean teach in their pain cafés. We also talk about the methods they personally find most valuable. We cover a lot of ground in this podcast, and many of the holistic pain management techniques can be applied to positive wellbeing in general. Check out what Sean says about his distraction technique that serves multiple purposes and what advice Julie gives on sleep patterns.

Next Podcast out soon – Si Egan from Sidwell Scribblers

For the next edition of the Podcast of Hope we speak to Si Egan who runs Sidwell Scribblers at St Sidwell’s Community centre in Exeter.

Follow Recovery Devon’s facebook page so you don’t miss the upload!

https://www.facebook.com/@RecoveryDevon

We love Si’s story. He originally started attending creative writing classes at St Sidwell’s Community centre before enrolling in a creative writing course at Urban Leaning Academy.

Si now teaches his own creative writing classes at St Sidwell’s and has made a big difference to people attending the course. He also successfully applied for the Recovery Devon Community Development Fund, which saw a record breaking amount of applicants this year.

Firstly, we talk about how Si arrived in Exeter and how Si tells us how he gained the courage to attend his first creative writing class with Devon Learning Community Centre.

Si describes a typical class to us, including some of the writing techniques he uses. He talks a lot about the process of running the classes and also how the Recovery Devon funding has really helped him.

I (Steve) really enjoyed doing the Podcast with Si, it was very natural talking with him.  I was taken back by his passion for the writing classes and found his story quite inspiring.

Culture of Care Project

The vital Culture of Care Project is continuing. Keep up the brilliant work Marie.

With the Culture of Care, both Recovery Devon and Together from Devon Partnership Trust are asking for those with lived and living experience of inpatient stays in the wards to take part to help support with co-producing the program. This is happening over 4 wards: Coombehaven, Salus, Ocean and Meadow View.

Please contact Sami: Sami@recoverydevon.co.uk or Marie: marie.ash@nhs.net

If you are interested in finding out more, there is payment for involvement.

The voice of lived and living experience is vital to this work.

Below are pictures giving a background to this exciting project

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What’s happening in the community in November

Mid Devon & East Devon

Andy’s Man Club

Please visit our flourish drop in which is led by 2 of our volunteers with lived experience. Every week has something different going on, and this week( (first week of October) we have a visit from Petroc college to share about what courses they offer and how adult education can be funded.

Plymouth Mental Health Reg

Plymouth Mental Health Recovery and Empowerment Group (Plymouth REG) is on a mission to inspire, empower and educate anyone in Plymouth who wants to improve their wellbeing and also anyone who has an interest in learning about mental health.

For more details please visit their website:

Letter of Hope

We are delighted to share the relaunch of the Letter of Hope, a resource we have created in partnership with Devon Partnership Trust and by people in Devon with personal experience of suicide.

We have launched two new versions of the letter; Letter for Tomorrow for young people written by young people, and Hope Letter, an Easy Read version for people with learning disabilities. To find out more please click here. Or get in touch with us if you would like to order physical copies.

Join our aDoddle Community Map!

We are partners with the wonderful folk at aDoddle. They are working with you and your community to make it as easy for everyone to find help and support locally as it is to find a hotel or restaurant on Google Maps.

By Mapping UK Charities, Community Projects, Groups & Organisations together we are creating a national resource for use at a local level. It’s free to create a profile on aDoddle, and this can hold all sorts of information, making it great for small groups who can’t afford a website.

Do you have a not-for-profit community mental health offer you’d like us to share?

With thousands of social media followers and newsletter subscribers across Devon, we’d love to help you find your community. Send an email (hello@recoverydevon.co.uk) with “Roundup” in the subject header.