“When something bad happens, it can make you feel a little braver than you were before”: How visiting a wellness café taught me the value of my lived experiences. 

“In July 2022, nine months after she was discharged from the local mental health team, my mum passed away. 

She had been navigating many challenges simultaneously – she had severe mental health problems, an unbearable homelife and was very addicted to benzodiazepines. Both her GP of 32 years and I advocated for her to retain the mental health support she’d been with for 18 years, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. 

It was a stressful time. I was very engaged in a battle to get her the support she needed by following the complaints process but wasn’t making any ground. I knew mums’ life was at risk and I was desperate for services to respect my knowledge on this one. She then relapsed and was hospitalised under section for the fourth and last time in her life in May 2022. Needless to say, I was also struggling with my own mental health.”

In the months that followed, Tania contacted her local GP about the mental health issues she was facing and was offered a series of six counselling sessions. During the final session, without much hope for a positive answer, she asked if there was anything else she could get involved in to help with her mental health.  

To her surprise, Tania was pointed towards the weekly Wellbeing Café run by Bristol Wellbeing College at Boston Tea Party. She made the decision to drop in and found a welcoming community – and unknowingly started on a path to using her own lived experience, and that of others, to inform improved ways of working with people facing multiple disadvantage. 

“When something bad happens… it can make you feel a little braver” 

“When something bad happens, one of the weird things about it is that it can make you feel a little braver than you were before, and it can make you question things about yourself. 

I just had this curiosity about the Wellbeing College. I might have been nervous to go to something like it before, but I just felt like ‘why not’? I felt at ease straight away, like I could just be, with no pressure to talk about anything in particular. 

I started getting to know people a little bit – some people wouldn’t talk and some would crack jokes, there were some big personalities. I’d bring in cherry bakewell tarts each week which proved very popular. I liked making people smile and I really enjoyed doing something that I wouldn’t have done before and meeting people I wouldn’t have met in any other circumstances. 

I noticed I was learning about what people do to support their mental health just by being there. It reinforced for me that everyone has strengths and that it is a holistic approach that supports sustained recovery – that being led by what is important to the person should always be at the heart of everything. 

The Bristol Wellbeing College facilitators were just brilliant and so easy to get on with. If you wanted to know about other services, wanted help booking onto courses, or if you were struggling with anything you could talk to them about it, and they would help or find out what you might need to do to get to where you wanted to be.” 

Bristol Wellbeing College was such a turning point for me. It allowed me to slowly start to find out who I was again and start to express myself.

Tania continued attending the weekly sessions and got to know both the facilitators and the people who attended the Wellbeing Café. By chance one day she mentioned that she used to enjoy boxing and boxercise and was looking for a positive way to direct some challenging energy – and through the café found a local fitness club where she could get back into the sport. 

After attending the café for 17 weeks, Chris, a fellow café attendee, showed her a job description for a role at Independent Futures. Changing Futures, a partnership between Second Step, Bristol Council and in collaboration with organisations city-wide, is dedicated to improving local services for adults and young people who face multiple disadvantage. Independent Futures inform the coproduction work of the Changing Futures programme by providing insights from those with lived experience.  

“When I read the job description and did some research into Changing Futures it was such a lightbulb moment for me – I read about the ‘My Team Around Me’ approach and knew that it was exactly what my mum had needed. It gave a language to things I’d experienced as a carer for someone facing multiple disadvantage. I wanted to be part of the positive change that the Changing Futures programme was working towards. I started to feel excited. 

By this point I’d been out of work for about seven months, and I had been quite worried about going back to work. I didn’t want to work for the sake of it, I wanted to do a job with meaning, but I had no idea what that would look like or if I had what it took to embark on such a career change. 

There was some pressure financially to work but at the same time I was still feeling so angry and confused – it felt like my life had been turned upside down. I talked to Matt, a Bristol Wellbeing College facilitator, and he was so positive about the potential I had for the role and encouraged me to give the hiring manager a call. I seized the moment and spoke to Corrado, Independent Futures Team Manager. He was enthusiastic and made me feel confident in the value of my combined lived and learnt experience. I began preparing my application straight away and started to imagine a positive, meaningful future for myself” 

“My experience with my mum shook my faith in services” 

After her mum’s death, Tania felt her faith in the services which supported her mum had been shaken. Despite her mum’s struggles with her mental health, as a teenager she advocated for children in care to be empowered by connecting with each other – using the same methods as a peer support group like the Wellbeing Café – and used her lived experience to help other people find the support they needed.  

But through Bristol Wellbeing College and her coordinator role at Independent Futures, Tania says she feels that her work across services, including mental health, has started to restore her faith in the power of integrated support, early intervention and lived experience.  

“My experience with my mum shook my faith in services but Bristol Wellbeing College was welcoming and caring, and working with Independent Futures has allowed me to contribute to positive lasting change for people experiencing multiple disadvantage and begin restoring that faith. Changing Futures values my lived experience. 

My mum went through years of trauma and abuse as a child and was taken into care aged 15, when her parents went to prison. She was an amazing person and, despite what she went through and having several suicides attempts in her teens, she was involved in helping kids in care support one another – like a peer support group. 

I have a cassette tape recording of my mum when she was 17 speaking with another lad who was in care on Nottingham Trent radio. It was amazing hearing her interview and her voice, and from then she went on to do a lot to help other people with her lived experience. 

She self-harmed throughout her life and did a lot of workshops with professionals and service users about self-harm to try and educate people and break down some of the misconceptions. 

Mum was also involved in pioneering research with Nottingham University to bring about meaningful change to mental health services and education. One academic wrote in the sympathy card after her death: ‘I couldn’t begin to estimate the number of student nurses she influenced and inspired over the years. I learnt a great deal from Angie and I am proud to have known her and I respect her legacy.’ 

One academic wrote in the sympathy card after her death: ‘I couldn’t begin to estimate the number of student nurses she influenced and inspired over the years. I learnt a great deal from Angie and I am proud to have known her.

Growing up with my mum, she was always very open with me about things, and I learnt a lot without realising that I was gaining skills that could help other people. Witnessing missed opportunities in mums care and the injustice of inequity also taught me a lot. I started to recognise that I could do good with this – that it could be a strength. Doing this job is a massive honour for me – as much as they’re very big shoes to fill, it feels like mum has passed the baton on to me. 

She came so far in the work she was doing to try and improve things for other people, it was sort of ironic that she was failed by services in the end – but it doesn’t have to be in vain. 

Now, as an Independent Futures coordinator, I get to facilitate the voice of lived experience and get insights from people who know what it’s like to influence positive lasting change. I’m still learning so much all the time in this role and I learn so much from Independent Futures members – they’re amazing and all so different. Having experienced almost shouting yet being voiceless, there is an element of catharsis to creating the conditions for people to be heard and challenging power dynamics so that the value of lived expertise is fully appreciated. I want coproduction to be standard practice, not just a bonus feature.  

There’s also currently an ongoing Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman investigation into mum’s care – the hope is that the learning from the investigation will result in actions and changes within those services.” 

“I’m empowered by the things I’ve done to help myself” 

Through her work with Independent Futures, Tania found the language to explore her experiences. And by dropping into the Wellbeing Café in the first place, she found a vessel to use her lived experience as a carer for someone with multiple disadvantage. 

As well as attending the Wellbeing Café, in winter 2022 Tania attended a Christmas decoration making course led by Bristol Wellbeing College. The college regularly runs different wellbeing courses with a focus on wellbeing, positive changes and self-reflection. 

“I did one course – a Christmas decoration making course which put me slightly out of my comfort zone but was very relaxing in the end. This Christmas just gone, I got all the decorations out and put them up on the tree with my daughter, alongside decorations mum had made. My daughter has just turned six and hanging the decorations mum had made, I had made, and my daughter had made felt very meaningful somehow. 

I’m empowered by the things I’ve done to help myself – by going to the café and the decorations course and putting myself out there, I was able to find the support I needed to get the wind back in my sails. 

It’s been quite a journey and Bristol Wellbeing College was such a turning point for me. It allowed me to slowly start to find out who I was again and start to express myself. It felt like a safe environment. 

That peer support element is really strong there and a lot of people really benefit from the consistency of it. There’s a sense you’re all in the same boat even though everyone has different backgrounds, you know everyone has been through a hard time. 

Gratitude helps me with my grief and I feel grateful for the key moments and people that helped me find my way without even realising it.” 

I want coproduction to be standard practice, not just a bonus feature.  

Interested in Bristol Wellbeing College and the Wellbeing Café? Find out more here.