Wellbeing
Projects
Connecting People, Building Community
Wellbeing is the golden thread that runs through everything we do. At CoLab, we offer a holistic wellbeing hub that supports people to feel safe, heard and valued. From health checks and creative therapies to peer-led activities and mindfulness; we go beyond traditional social prescribing. Our approach blends personal support with community development; we help people reconnect with themselves and their communities.
Our inclusive, welcoming environment supports recovery and resilience and encourages small steps that lead to big life changes – Your wellbeing, Your way? (Whatever Wellbeing means to you)
Wellbeing Exeter
Community life and social connections are vital to all our health and wellbeing. Wellbeing Exeter works alongside people to discover and develop opportunities and ideas on how to live and feel better and get connected to what matters to them.
As a partnership, we offer the following:
Community Connectors
Our Community Connectors support people with their wellbeing and will work on a one-to-one basis to explore opportunities on offer in Exeter.
Community Builders
Community Builders support people in their local neighbourhoods to grow their own ideas and try new things that bring people together, improve their wellbeing and make the community a better place to live. This can include: connecting people and opportunities together, creating new networks; encouraging and supporting local people to take action on things that matter to them; creating spaces that allow people to come together, get to know each other, build trust and share skills.
Community Physical Activity Organisers
CPAOs focus on being active as one of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing. They work with people who aren’t currently active to find new opportunities to move more as part of their daily lives. This can include: connecting people to community and opportunities to be more active, in ways which work for them; working in Exeter’s local neighbourhoods with residents, groups and networks to support physical activity ideas to get off the ground, grow and keep going.
Evidence shows that if we connect with others, keep learning, take notice of what is around us, give something back to our community and stay active, our happiness and overall wellbeing will increase.
These 5 Ways to Wellbeing inform and underpin how the programme engages and works with individuals and communities to enhance and promote their wellbeing.
We work alongside:
the skills, knowledge and commitment of individual community members
the resources and facilities within the public, private and third sector
friendships, good neighbours, local groups and community and voluntary associations
physical, environmental and economic resources that enhance wellbeing
Together we build on what’s strong to enhance individual and community wellbeing.
Gail Mistlin
Head of Service for Wellbeing
“I have worked many, many years in the voluntary sector, focusing on social care. Throughout my career, I have been deeply passionate about empowering the most marginalised individuals in our society, ensuring they have a voice and access to the same opportunities as others. As a senior manager I have been at the forefront of many new initiatives, including Social Prescribing, which focusses on the health and wellbeing of individuals. This has led me to CoLab and Wellbeing Exeter, where four and a half years on as the Head of Service for Wellbeing, I now have the opportunity to spend my time focusing on the wellbeing of others, what could be better than that!”
Hear from Gail
Publications
Contact
gail.mistlin@colabexeter.org.uk
info@wellbeingexeter.org.uk