News Archives - Wellspring Therapy & Training

Would you like to have news delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up here to receive our quarterly newsletters, training updates, or prayer letters.

For more updates, see our latest blog posts below.

Stress Awareness Month

April 23, 2021 By wellspring

Stress Awareness Month has been held every April, since 1992 to increase public awareness about both the causes and cures for our modern stress epidemic. In today’s blog post, Alex helps us to understand what stress is and how it can lead to burnout.

Stress is a bodily reaction to threat. It is hardwired into all of us. In other words, it involves automatic, ancient programming over which we have little control. If a predator is chasing us we don’t have time to think about our reaction, we experience the stress response in our bodies. We recognise the flight/fight/freeze response in a change to our physical state. The rise of adrenaline and cortisol is programmed to stimulate our muscles to move, our blood supply to surge energy to those muscles and any prospect of resting or digesting food is temporarily halted. We are primed for our best response.

So far so good, in survival terms. However, this is more problematic when we find ourselves stuck here, on a constant loop of these hormonal surges, and no respite to be found. This is chronic stress. Stress that is never given a chance to leave our bodies before the next threat is recognised. It’s like the story of the frog in boiling water. You may be able to cope in the moment, like the frog in warm water but if you gradually increase the temperature eventually the frog will die as it didn’t notice the gradual build up of heat. Our bodies still respond with the automatic programming. The causes of stress may often be personal, but they are universal in the stress response they trigger.

This is burnout.

Resting and healing from burnout needs to address both the immediate distress and the longer term chronic problems of pressure. We need to learn to complete the stress cycle (see previous blog post on this) so all our stresses do not build together over time. Counselling can help with this, and with addressing any overwhelming stress that has been hanging around too long.

For more information about how to deal with stress, see ‘Burnout’ by Emily and Amelia Nagoski or visit www.stress.org.uk.

Written by Alex Brook-Dobson [Wellspring Counsellor]

If you would like to refer yourself for counselling, please use the link at the bottom of our Therapy page.

Wellspring House has now re-opened for a limited number of face-to-face counselling sessions. Zoom and telephone counselling are continuing to take place. Most of our clients live within a radius of up to 20 miles. However, if you live outside this area (but still in the UK) and do not have access to a local counselling service, you can still contact us through the online form as we do have capacity to see a limited number of adults from outside the area.

See our Resources page for more support and links.

Wellspring’s New Animation

April 19, 2021 By wellspring

We wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and to share one of our client stories with you in this new Wellspring animation. You can read Becky’s* full story here.

Could you help us to support more people like Becky?

You can donate to our work as a one-off or sign up to give regularly on our Donate page.

If you would like to refer yourself for counselling, please use the link at the bottom of our Therapy page.

Wellspring House has now re-opened for a limited number of face-to-face counselling sessions. Zoom and telephone counselling are continuing to take place. Most of our clients live within a radius of up to 20 miles. However, if you live outside this area (but still in the UK) and do not have access to a local counselling service, you can still contact us through the online form as we do have capacity to see a limited number of adults from outside the area.

See our Resources page for more support and links.

*The client and counsellor name in the animation have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

Job Vacancy: Route One to Wellness

March 26, 2021 By wellspring

Route One to Wellness Partnership Co-ordinator

Initial 1 year contract – extension subject to funding.

Route One to Wellness is an innovative mental health and wellbeing focused VCS partnership based in the Harrogate district comprising Orb Community Enterprise, MIND in Harrogate, Claro Enterprises and Wellspring Therapy and Training.

The successful postholder will be responsible for the day to day running of the Route One to Wellness referral pathway, working closely with staff at the four partner organisations and promoting and developing relationships with referring organisations. You will manage a caseload of service users, assessing their needs and ensuring they are provided with the most appropriate and effective support and helping them to overcome barriers they may face in participating in their chosen service.

You will need to network and keep abreast of changes of local services, VCS agencies and other sources of help and support so you can signpost to other local agencies and services when appropriate.

Orb Community Enterprise will be the official employer and be responsible for all matters relating to the employment, payroll and line management. You will be required to spend one day a week at each partner organisation.

Salary: £23,451 pro rata. Hours: 30 hours per week over 4 days.

For an application pack please contact Elizabeth Marshall, Orb’s Operations Manager, on 01423 202028, or via email: elizabeth@orb-arts.org. We are happy to provide further information if required.

Completed applications should be emailed to: elizabeth@orb-arts.org by 9 am on Monday 19th April. Interviews will be held via Zoom on Thursday 29th April.

The four partner organisations are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of Vulnerable Adults and all successful applicants will be required to apply for an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and the right to work in the UK check.

Finding motivation – 3 ideas to make a difference

March 24, 2021 By wellspring

After months of lockdown, many of us may be feeling a lack of motivation.

We wanted to share some quick ideas with you to give you a bit of inspiration and to encourage you that you can make a difference in your community!

During the first lockdown, we all had to respond quickly to our new circumstances, using our creativity to adapt and to navigate the many new challenges.

A year later, it is not surprising that we may be feeling tired, whether it’s due to the weight of emotional burdens that we’ve been carrying, or simply due to the monotony of lockdown life and that common problem… Zoom fatigue!

Inspiring Ideas

We’ve been inspired by the unique ways that our supporters have found ways to look after their mental health, add some interest into their daily routine and raise funds for Wellspring at the same time. So here are 3 simple ideas to motivate and inspire you….

1. Taking up a hobby

We recently heard Lizzie’s amazing story about how she’s been crocheting as a way of looking after her mental wellbeing. After learning how to create crochet animals, she started to take commissions, with all donations going towards charitable causes, including Wellspring. From crocheting huggable porcupines to pet dogs, it’s fantastic to see how Lizzie is using her hobby to make a real difference.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Wellspring Therapy & Training (@wellspringtherapyandtraining)

2. Talking and Walking

One of the main ways of socialising during lockdown has been 1:1 walks. Chris from The Electric Broker (Ethos) wanted to keep fit and encourage people to stay in touch with each other, so he took on an ambitious sponsored challenge to raise awareness and to raise funds for Wellspring. His walk was a huge success, raising over £3000 for the work of Wellspring.

“After recently completing a 874 mile journey from Land’s End to John O’Groats in an EV, I wanted to do something truly meaningful.That’s why, I set myself the challenge of walking the same distance between November and New Year – 20km everyday – to help raise money for Wellspring. This pandemic has affected every single person in this country, and it’s now more important than ever to help each other. I asked for people to either donate £5 towards my walk or donate 5 minutes of their time to give someone a call and make sure they’re okay.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Wellspring Therapy & Training (@wellspringtherapyandtraining)

Harrogate Brigantes Rotary Club also took on an incredible walking challenge last year. Together, they did a virtual Everest trek! Their members collectively walked over 1,500 miles and climbed 1,000,000 feet, from banking their miles by trekking across Yorkshire Dales to climbing up the steps of a high-rise apartment!

We are very grateful that we were one of the chosen charities. You can read the full story here.

3. Finding new ways to celebrate and socialise!

Churches across the UK would normally be celebrating Easter with all sorts of different events, but this year Easter will look a bit different. We are thrilled that St Mark’s Youth have decided to take part in our Big Sponsored Sleepover as one of their Easter events.

We spoke to Natalie, the St Mark’s Youth Pastor, who told us all about their exciting plans to hold a virtual Easter sleepover celebration on the 3rd April! This virtual pyjama party will be a chance to have fun playing games and to learn more about mental health.

What will you do?

Maybe you want to take up a new hobby like Lizzie, challenge yourself to do a bit more exercise, or organise a social event that’s a bit different to your usual online call. Whatever it is, we hope you feel inspired by these Harrogate stories to find fresh motivation.

And if you are able to raise funds for the work of Wellspring in some way, however big or small, we would love to hear from you.

For those of you who like running, we currently have two places for the virtual 2021 Virgin Money London Marathon! It’s taking place on Sunday 3rd October and participants will have 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds (from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59 BST) to complete the distance, which they can choose to run, walk or jog – participants of all abilities are welcome!

Send us a message or email us at communications@wellspringtherapy.co.uk if you’re interested in getting involved and raising funds for Wellspring!

For further motivation and ideas for fundraising, take our quiz to find out what your fundraising personality is!

We are all in this together – Self-Care during Lockdown

March 10, 2021 By wellspring

We are all in this together.

It is easy to dismiss our own needs at the best of times. We can become experts at distracting ourselves or minimising our own importance. If there are people worse off than ourselves, which there generally always are, we can say it is our duty or humility that requires us to stay silent around our own needs.

When we are hungry, we are no less hungry by knowing that there are people who are starving in the world. Our need is not so great as theirs of course, but neither is it to be ignored.

The pandemic has brought immeasurable suffering and grief to so many, but it doesn’t mean that the individual trials and challenges we all face our insignificant.

We are not all in the same boat, but we are in the same storm.

As humanity we are all in this together. We have different boats, but if we look after our boat we can stay afloat to help others who may be sinking.

It comes back to self-care. We do not need to deny ourselves self care if others are suffering, we can use it to ultimately help them.

How can you look after yourself today? And if it helps, try and identify who else that will help?

Written by Alex Brook-Dobson

See our Resources page for more support and links.

Our building is currently closed for face-to-face counselling until further notice. But we are still offering sessions over the phone or through Zoom to the people of Harrogate and the surrounding area. Most of our clients live within a radius of up to 20 miles. However, if you live outside this area (but still in the UK) and do not have access to a local counselling service, you can still contact us through the online form as we do have capacity to see a limited number of adults from outside the area. If you would like to refer yourself for counselling, please use the link at the bottom of our Therapy page.