Alan is a familiar and friendly presence at The Life Rooms. He started his journey with us as a service user, accessing Pathways Advice and Learning support, became a volunteer in 2019 supporting the Research Team in the first evaluation of The Life Rooms, before joining our Wellbeing Support Team as a Support Worker in 2021.
Now, Alan is our Building Coordinator for The Life Rooms Walton, managing the day to day running of the building, Walton Library, and our café. His community outreach work has led to extra activity on site like Baby Babble groups and Help for Heroes support.
After 32 years working in the cold storage industry, Alan started to feel the impacts of the pressure of the role on his mental health and started receiving treatment for depression. The experience changed his views on life, work, and mental health forever. “I knew I had to help myself, but it’s difficult to make decisions when it feels like there’s a washing machine going round in your head. It drains you of energy, then your sleep pattern goes and you hit a brick wall”.
On a visit to his GP, Alan picked up a leaflet for Mersey Care’s Recovery College (now The Life Rooms) and signed up for the Journeys Through Film course. “I didn’t know what to expect, but I enjoyed it. I went along to more courses, I felt relaxed, I started to get my confidence back. The [people] running the courses understand, they’ve been there”.
Alan hasn’t looked back since joining The Life Rooms team. “This doesn’t feel like work to me, it comes naturally. I say to people – get a bit of purpose, do some courses, get your confidence back and you’ll be flying again. I’m a classic example of it working.”
Mary has been a welcoming presence across our Walton and Southport sites, as well as out in the community as part of our peripatetic work to bring our services closer to the people who need support.
Now a Pathways Advisor, Mary has also held roles in our Digital Health Activation Service, and the Learning Team, giving her broad experience and knowledge of the support we offer to be able to help our service users.
In 2020, Mary started to become unwell due to stress in a previous role at another organisation and left work. “When I gave up work, I went into myself. I didn’t want to do anything, I didn’t want to go anywhere. Things were frightening me”. Mary started to experience hallucinations and paranoia and had challenges in receiving a correct diagnosis. With the support of her husband and daughter, Mary eventually came under the care of the Early Interventions Team, who along with a Psychologist helped Mary to understand her psychosis and access the right treatment and support, and she “started feeling [her] old self was coming back”.
Mary’s Psychologist was the one who suggested she try coming to The Life Rooms. In her previous role at another organisation, Mary had delivered courses as an external course facilitator at The Life Rooms. “I was worried about going to The Life Rooms because of my mental health, I felt like I might be judged but that wasn’t the case at all. Everybody made me feel so welcome.”
Working at The Life Rooms has helped Mary rebuild her confidence, and her experience help her support service users with empathy and understanding. “Working here has helped me understand myself a bit more. I can say, from lived experience, I understand what you’re going through.”
Mary also runs an Understanding Psychosis peer support group at the Quaker Rooms.