We have a success story this month! J had been fairly recluse since before Covid. He had lost the motivation to head out into the world due to various reasons. Just after Christmas, he remembered Support at the Cavern and started coming in a few days a week. He now comes most nights and has recently returned from a visit with his brother in Devon. This was a huge step for him and he enjoyed it immensely! He has now organised a visit with another brother in July. He is a poet and has written several pieces about his experiences and how he feels about Support and the wider Treasure Seekers. He loves chatting with staff and playing games with staff and other service users. He told us this week that 'life is going much better these days'. We are very happy to to have played a part in him discovering his joy again!

We are open 365 days a year from 6pm-11pm just behind the Cavern at 56 Westgate Street, Gloucester. If you would like any further information, please feel free to contact the Support at The Cavern Lead at [email protected]

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One of our key values in the Anchor is independence - the question we always want to be asking ourselves is: if we weren’t here, how would the trainee sort this out for themselves? Often our role is simply to talk through what the trainee wants, help them make a plan of action, and often (but not always) be with them as they make a first phone call or application. Our aim is to give the trainees the confidence to know that they can do these things even if the Anchor team isn’t with them. This month, different trainees have independently arranged meetings with other services, set up their own ongoing counselling sessions, organised voluntary work in different departments of Treasure Seekers and attended a job interview.

One of our trainees has previously worked as an actor, and wanted to get back into this, but his complex emotional needs made this difficult. Recently he had the opportunity to apply for a reality TV show aimed at people who want to act, but have not had the opportunities they needed. Our trainee organised a photo shoot for himself, made an audition tape and put in an application. All the Anchor has done is help him with some of the tech issues, and supported him through the process, and he has discovered where he can get this kind of help in the future. We know that he was shortlisted from 1000 to the last 100 - but whether he gets into the show or not, the steps he has taken already are real achievements in themselves, and something he would have struggled to do when he started with us. 

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This month in Youth Support we’ve had some new faces, both staff members and service users. We’ve loved getting to know them all and we’re happy to say they’ve settled in well. We’ve loved to see some of our service users become more confident in accessing our service. Whereas previously some of them would need to come downstairs with one of us, we’re now seeing them come downstairs by themselves which is really lovely to see!

We’ve made a few changes to our space this month as well. We’ve made the decision to allow food in our space which everyone certainly appreciates. We’ve also gotten ourselves a gaming corner, we have an xbox set up that anyone can use and we’re planning to add more both to this corner and to our space as a whole. Watch this space!

As always, we really appreciate the team we have and everything they’ve been doing for our service. They make our space such a welcoming environment and we love them for it!