Colourful Minds relaunched at its new forever home in Heywood

Non-profit organisation Colourful Minds was relaunched at its new forever home, Darnhill Library in Heywood, last month.

Attended by the Mayor of Rochdale Councillor Aasim Rashid, Councillor Wendy Cocks, present and new service users, and professionals from local services, the relaunch morning provided an opportunity to learn more about Colourful Minds and service users could talk to the professionals present.

An unincorporated association that aims to support all aspects of wellbeing for parents and carers of families with special educational needs and disabilities, Colourful Minds was established in September 2020 after local parents felt that more emotional support was needed in Heywood.

The committee is made up of five parent carers all with different experiences of raising children with complex needs: Zoë McGuirk and Laura Hansom are peer support leads and the chairpersons, Hayley Tideswell is the parents voice, Megan Boswell is secretary and Sam Mallon is treasurer. 

Peer support lead and chairperson, Zoë McGuirk said: “With the pandemic very much still present, we were restricted in a lot of ways to provide support, but with help from Rochdale Council we managed to organise restricted face-to-face sessions and wellbeing walks. Our WhatsApp group was a huge backbone, especially when families needed to shield.

“We provide various services such as face to face peer support which runs as a drop-in session. It is a peer lead group so we can offer personal experiences and invite professional services to guest speak at the sessions. All that we ask is for service users and visitors to give a voluntary donation of 50p for refreshments."

 

 

“Our wellbeing walks are organised monthly around Heywood and surrounding areas," continued Zoë.

"We have a reflection garden under construction at our local allotments for our service users who are green-fingered, but also a space for service users to relax with our sensory environment that is also being adapted.

"As the area begins to reopen, we are also looking at organising various wellbeing events to give our parents a much-needed time out, which our parents voice, Hayley Tideswell, leads as part of her role.”

Councillor for West Heywood, Wendy Cocks said: “Colourful Minds offers a safe and supportive listening ear to families with children with special educational needs. I was delighted to meet them and find a warm and welcoming group who, as parents themselves, are good friends to other families looking for someone who really understands.

“Thank you for all they do for families in Heywood.”

Colourful Mind term time sessions at Darnhill Library, Heywood are available Wednesday mornings fortnightly from 10am - 12noon and Wednesday evenings monthly 6.45pm - 8pm.

To find out more about Colourful Minds, or to fundraise or donate to the group, visit:

• https://colourfulminds.vpweb.co.uk/