Two years on from the first event, Talking FreELY will be holding another public event at Ely Cathedral Conference Centre on Saturday 6th July from 9.30 until 12.30.
The event aims to raise awareness of mental health, and provide information to people about where they can get help if they need it.
As always, there will be a pop-up cafe where everything is free of charge – even the cake! Trained talking volunteers will be there to chat and share their own mental health stories. You’ll be able to find information about local services and they hope to launch an exciting community art project we everyone is invited to be a part of.
Founder of Talking FreELY, Anthony Sigrist, will give a talk about his own mental health journey and psychotherapist Lisa Buckingham will share some tips and tools to help you manage stress.
Lisa is a qualified practising psychotherapist and accredited member of the National Counselling Society. She has extensive training and experience in various professional areas including Transactional Analysis, Mindfulness and sexual violence. She practices privately in March and Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, providing counselling and coaching services for businesses and individuals.
Prior to this Lisa was a senior manager in the NHS and had a 20 year career leading a team of fraud investigators and auditors as well as providing management consultancy services to local NHS bodies. Having seen the effects of stress on both herself and colleagues she wanted to understand how and why we succumb to emotional pressures and how to combat them. She changed career path to pursue this drawing together a life-long interest in mental health and personal experience of struggles with depression. Now a qualified psychotherapist she has been able to pass on her knowledge, help others to understand their mental health and develop strategies to improve individual well-being.
Lisa was part of the original team at Talking FreELY helping to develop and guide the organisation through its various stages of growth. She currently leads the organisation on Safeguarding and Welfare as well as supporting the development of policy and training.
Since it was launched in 2017, Talking FreELY has gone from strength to strength. What started as a one-off event to raise awareness of mental health and a campaign to end the stigma around it, has grown and it is now a registered Community Interest Company.
Carly Mason, one of Talking FreELY’s Directors says ‘It became clear early on that there was a great need for Talking FreELY. There was an overwhelming response to our events and we found that we were being approached by other organisations to help them to put on events and raise awareness of mental health.’
Talking FreELY now works with local schools and colleges to help increase mental health awareness with their students and staff as well as providing guest speakers, training and workshops to organisations across the region. At the centre of everything though, are the public events which are vitally important to their mission and ethos to bring about a change in attitudes toward mental health, here in East Cambridgeshire.
Details of the event can be found on the Talking FreELY Facebook page or by contacting Talking FreELY at enquiries@talkingfreely.org.
Press release from Talking FreELY
