South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust (SWLSTG) has opened a new branch of its Recovery College as it aims to improve access to training and courses in mental health in Wimbledon.
The new centre, which opened last week [January 9], is based at the Open Door Community Centre and will offer courses designed to help people manage their own mental health.
It is the third of such colleges run by SWLSTG, and only the fourth nationwide. Recovery College manager, Steve Wybourn, said: “Our Recovery College offers education and training across the whole of southwest London for our service users, their carers, families and friends. We already have centres in Wandsworth and Merton but opening this new site will make our services much more accessible to people in Wimbledon.”
SWLSTG set the colleges up to offer a new approach to managing mental illness by empowering service users to manage their own recoveries rather than relying on a doctor or other experts.
Courses being run in the spring term courses include: five ways to wellbeing; gaining confidence with effective communication; and understanding a diagnosis of depression.
The programme has received praise from former Care Services Minister Paul Burstow: “When I visited the South West London Recovery College, I heard powerful personal testimonies from people who were living purposeful and fulfilling lives, and who were living with their illness rather than having to be cured of symptoms or illnesses,” he said.
“I was told that being called a student, rather than a patient, helped people take control of their recovery, gave them more confidence and, crucially, made them feel normal, as opposed to being treated as a helpless, passive recipient of care.”
