Independent Living Skills

Living a healthy lifestyle is a big part of quality of life. Our members learn about the importance of healthy eating, exercise and personal hygiene. These life skills help us feel better, look better and enhance long-term health and quality of life.

We help people understand how to carry out various household activities. This includes washing, ironing and cleaning. We also have our own garden and polytunnel where our members can get involved with gardening, as well as learn about plants and wildlife. In the summer, we sell our flowers to the public by holding stalls at different places in the community. We also grow our own fruit and vegetables, which we use to cook with in our onsite kitchen.

We help our members understand the steps and goals involved in a visit to the shops, so it doesn’t seem as overwhelming. We help break these tasks down and learn about tips and suggestions such as making a shopping list.

We also help members improve their financial knowledge. This includes handling money, budgeting and understanding how to pay bills and dealing with benefits.

Being able to travel means more freedom, a more active social life and more opportunities. That’s why we teach our members how to use public transport and travel safely.

We help our members adapt to different social situations. We learn about body language, emotional intelligence and the importance of maintaining healthy relationships.

We help our members understand how to stay safe online. Things like making sure your privacy settings are high on social media so you can control what information can be seen by your friends and the public. Or making sure you don’t give your personal details to someone you don’t know and trust – like your phone number, address or bank details.

We also help our members stay safe while out and about, such as crossing roads safely and planning a journey.