Plymouth Mental Health Recovery and Empowerment Group CIC run educational workshops, to increase people’s understanding of mental health challenges and give them knowledge and skills to support recovery. All workshops are co-produced, being designed and delivered by people with lived experience of mental health recovery working in collaboration with people with knowledge from training and working in the mental health field. Workshops are free and open to anyone and take place in community venues across Plymouth. During the financial year 2025-2026 we have run a total of 17 workshops, attended by 129 people covering the following topics: - Challenging perfectionism - Understanding your mental health as a neurodiverse person - Understanding and coping with Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder - Using yoga to support recovery from trauma - Using nature connection to improve mental health - Understanding and coping with psychosis - Substance misuse and mental health - Compassionate approaches to mental health Most workshop participants identified that they had their own mental health difficulties, although workshops were also attended by carers and family members and people working in health and social care. Workshop feedback showed that participants benefitted in the following ways - Increased understanding of mental health challenges and recovery, and consequently felt more hopeful and empathic - Learning coping strategies, which they were able to try out in the workshops and resources to use later, and they then felt more confident about their own recovery and supporting others - Experiencing connection with others, both people with similar experiences but also those with different experiences, leading to a greater sense of acceptance and self compassion Experiencing taking time out to focus on their wellbeing and feeling supported and understood. The workshops gave 8 people the opportunity to share their lived experience of mental health recovery, helping them transform their experiences into something positive that can benefit others and helping them feel less ashamed, more confident and empowered.

Our stakeholders are people living in Plymouth who are affected by mental health challenges, either personally, as a carer, mental health worker or concerned citizen. The members of the company have lived experience of mental health challenges and accessing local services and / or are mental health professionals and so have direct knowledge of what information would benefit these groups and developed the service model on the basis of their personal and professional experience. During this year we have recruited 3 new members with personal experience of mental health recovery and / or providing mental health support to others, and, alongside existing members, they have had the opportunity to influence the operation of the company through participation in regular development group meetings. We have also worked with new collaborators from our stakeholder groups and developed new workshop contents, formats and venues based on their priorities. We have continued to gather evaluation feedback at the end of workshops and used suggestions for improvements and future workshop topics to improve workshops and help us prioritise new topics. We have participated in 2 mental health open days organised by the Devon Mental Health Alliance in order to meet with a wider range of stakeholders and discuss their experiences and ideas. Across these two events we spoke to approximately 100 people. We have also conducted an online survey, which had 40 respondents to help us understand what mental health support people in Plymouth would value and help shape our future activities.

Total directors’ remuneration included in the accounts is £4234.25.

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration