Arts & Crafts

The art and craft morning welcomes everyone at the centre to participate, as well as being great fun, it offers new skills and can also be very therapeutic.

The art and craft group takes place on Thursday mornings from 10 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Group members can learn to work in a variety of mediums including painting, drawing, fabric printing, stain glass and jewellery making.

The current group project is nearing completion and it has involved the entire centre, the manager, all the workers including the cook and most of its centre users. Each person was required to make a design or mark on a felt square. These squares were then sewn together to produce a spectacular quilt. The entire project was a fun exercise designed to create stronger cohesion among the centre users.

Anyone wanting to view the work produced from the art and craft group are welcome to visit the upstairs gallery at BPMHA where most works are on display.

Sewing

The sewing group takes place at the BPMHA every Monday morning. It aims to provide opportunities and an environment for women:

To enhance their sewing skills.
To learn new techniques.
To share experiences and ideas together.
To build co-operation and team work
To bond and form new friendships.

Bible Study

Bible study takes place every Wednesday and is client led. The groups are normally small at about 8 to 10 people and it provides a unique opportunity for clients from the community to interact over a common interest.

Every week a different passage is chosen from either the Old or New Testament and the group then discuss their thoughts and feelings about it and also how it relates or affects their own lives. As there are so many different backgrounds and experiences in the BPMHA, this gives our clients some insight into other people’s lives, experiences and spirituality and can in the long run enable them to attain a higher understanding of their own worlds.

The group enables clients to voice their opinions and views on life through a spiritual medium and is an excellent means of therapy.

Prayer

Our Heavenly Father and Friend in the name of Jesus, we present before you all of our staff, clients, visitors and associates continually.

We pray our God that you will bless, pardon and restore us, by your grace, mercy and continual love, which are renewed every morning.

Bless us in body, mind and spirit. Unite us in love, harmony and peace from this time forward until you come to reclaim your own. We humbly ask these mercies in the powerful name of Jesus Christ who shed His precious blood for us all amen.

by Chelsi Markland

A trainer visits the centre every Wednesday and users take part on an optional basis although we do strongly encourage their participation. As well as being a great deal of fun the group aims:

To promote a better self image.
To promote a greater understanding of health issues and how they
affect our lives.
To allow the users to interact with one another
To help clients lead a better , healthier life.

Computer literacy is important for almost any job in the modern world and if our clients are to have a fair chance in the job market it is clear that they will need to show an understanding of computers. It is also essential that they demonstrate a certain amount of confidence around them as so many of our new clients have never used computers in their lives.

We invite trained professionals in to the centre as often as we can so that they can give our clients a solid grounding in IT with a view to them gaining a greater understanding of hardware and software packages. Many of our users have gone on to more advanced courses using the training here as their platform.

To date users have been introduced to several different pathways including:

Word processing
Databases
Internet
Windows operating system

Our hope is that our users will then be able to achieve better things in their lives and careers.

English & Life Skills is a weekly drop-in group with a core membership of six who stay for the duration and regulars who attend when they want to.

The aim of the group is to foster effective verbal communication and therapy enabling clients to take advantage of the many opportunities available at the Centre to enhance their new skills and to make new friends. Together we have worked towards improved interaction with their peers and staff, enhanced listening skills and the ability to hold interesting conversation; being able to discuss their symptoms and treatment with professionals succinctly.

It is an environment where positives are emphasised, successes are always acknowledged, negatives are dispelled and weaknesses can be shared without fear of destructive criticisms.

The emphasis will always be on fun as response is always better that way The material is compiled to target the individual needs of a group mixed in gender age and ability and some of the areas covered have been:

Opposites
Homophones
Compound words
Dictionary definitions
Cryptic clues

We sometimes play scrabble, word jigsaw and puzzles. We then read. Each one takes a turn at reading aloud and then we discuss what has been read and look at parallels in our own lives and whether we would behave in the same way as the characters or if there are alternative situations that would be equally effective.