Link4Life IN LOCKDOWN
Continuing to support our local community With the current situation around covid-19 constantly changing and Link4Life venues temporarily closed again due to lockdown, we’re still here to support you and our local community to stay active, creative and healthy. Have a read of what we’re doing and what we’ve been up to over the last few months.
Support the local community though Local Response Hubs Working in partnership with Action Together and Rochdale Borough Council, Link4Life staff continue to help support the most vulnerable in our local communities. Through the Local Response Hubs, the team are giving assistance with shopping, medicines, providing wellbeing assistance, getting people online if they are not familiar with technology or the internet, and connecting people with other services such as Adult Care and Citizens Advice. For those that need to self-isolate due to a positive covid-19 test, the team are also assisting with advice on support available.
Link4Life At Home During lockdown 1, we created Link4Life At Home to help you stay active, creative and healthy. As we’ve all been at home more during covid-19 lockdowns and tier restrictions, and some have been shielding, we know that regular exercise and being creative is essential for keeping you as healthy as possible and boosting your mood. To support you, Link4Life At Home gives a range of free activities for children, adults and older adults. Members of our team have filmed a variety of activities including fitness classes, online workouts, cooking sessions and recipes ideas, nutrition information, arts projects, indoor activities and mindfulness sessions You can also view the artworks collection at Touchstones or take a virtual tour of Rochdale Arts & Heritage Centre.
Alongside our own activities, we’ve also included content from our partners including Les Mills, Life Fitness, National Theatre Live and British Gymnastics and links to some of the great resources available from other organisations. There’s also gentle home exercises for older adults and for those managing health conditions such as back pain. We’re updating this every week so there’s something new to do each time you visit. If you want to get creative and try something new, or if you’ve not taken part in a workout class before and want to give it a try, take a look at what’s available and do them in the comfort of your own home. We’re also including videos from our nutrition team to give ideas of easy, healthy and cheap meals to make. Visit www.link4life.org/at-home
2020/21
GM Active Staff Training: Covid-19 Rehabilitation We know that covid-19 affects people in different ways, and it can sometimes take weeks and even months to fully recover from its debilitating impact. As part of GM Active, our team along with colleagues across Greater Manchester, are gaining training to enable staff to safely help people who are recovering from the effects of covid-19 to engage in physical activity and exercise supporting them in their rehabilitation.
On completing the training, our team will: • have an excellent understanding of covid-19; its nature, effects and impact on the individuals health, prevalence and the treatments • be able to help and support rehabilitation; recognising when it is safe to exercise, monitoring breathlessness, behaviour change and exercise guidance • support with health screening, exercise testing and prescription, fatigue management, and help people to access the services available to provide additional support if needed
Supporting FAST Testing and Vaccination Centres across the Borough With leisure centres currently closed, some are being used to support FAST testing and vaccinations across the borough. Heywood Sports Village is being used as a Find And Stop Transmission (FAST) test centre with both a walk-in site and drive-thru site located there. Across the borough of Rochdale frontline workers showing no symptoms can be FAST tested to help detect and fight covid-19. It uses lateral flow tests and the tests are free.
Support with Homeschooling We know that remote learning can be really hard for teachers, children and parents alike so we’ve produced homeschooling resources to offer support.
Join intrepid time traveler, Professor Jigget, as he uses the Mystery History Chest and the Sands of Time to investigate historic items, learn some interesting facts and test your knowledge. So get your thinking caps on and get ready to explore!
Our team at Touchstones have created four videos covering different historical topics; Prehistoric History, Egyptians, Romans and Anglo-Saxons.
There’s a different topic each week so tune in for a dose of entertaining explorations into history. There’s also activity sheets for each lesson.
Mindful Movements As part of Rochdale’s Mental Health Support Team service, Link4Life’s Mental Wellbeing Engagement officers are working with schools in the borough to deliver a new six week Mindful Movement programme to support young people within the community at this challenging time. Consisting of wellbeing workshops, yoga, breath awareness and mindfulness, it helps to support young people with their mental
View more information at www. rochdale.gov.uk/fasttesting Littleborough Sports Centre is being used by Rochdale Health Alliance as a local Vaccination Service Centre. It’s one of 4 vaccination centres across the borough supporting the NHS to deliver the covid-19 to as many people as quickly as possible. On the first day of the centre opening at Littleborough Sports Centre, over 500 vaccinations were completed!
More information about covid-19 vaccinations can be viewed at www.rochdale.gov.uk/ covidvaccine Heywood Civic Centre continues to be a PCR test centre for anyone with coronavirus symptoms. View more information at www. rochdale.gov.uk/testandtrace Members of the Link4Life team are supporting with testing and marshalling at covid-19 testing and vaccination centres across the borough.
wellbeing and create a better understanding of how they can manage situations and feelings. The wellbeing topics cover the five ways of wellbeing, friendships, food and mood, dealing with emotions and how activity helps mental wellbeing. For those children and young people who are currently homeschooling, the team have adapted the programme and are creating a variety of online videos on mindful movement, yoga, breathing and stretching which will be published each week.
View all homeschooling resources at www.link4life.org/at-home Alongside our own content, we’re also including great resources available from partners and other organisations.
Holiday Club Link4Life were able to deliver a successful holiday club programme throughout October half term for children with mild to moderate additional needs. These activities can still take place during lockdown so will run at Rochdale Leisure Centre during February half term.
#Thrive The current lockdown and covid-19 restrictions have impacted mental health & wellbeing and resulted in anxieties, uncertainties and worries in children and young people. At times, most people need a little extra support. #Thrive is for children and young people aged up to years who are experiencing emotional health and wellbeing issues such as feeling stressed, worried or not enjoying things. Working in partnership with Pennine Care NHS Foundation
Trust and Youth in Mind, our Thrive team have lots of different types of support; offering advice to improve general lifestyle, counselling sessions, online courses or access to other types of support such as sport, drama, music or art. During lockdown, we’re still supporting children and young people on the telephone with initial consultations and wellbeing calls, and providing advice and support to parents, carers and anyone that works with a child or
Active Workforce
If you’d like to speak to a member of our team, contact 0161 716 2844 or view facebook.com/ ThriveHMR
Tea & Chat and Sing-along Sessions
Our Active Workforce team are continuing to support the physical and mental wellbeing of people working at home through a wide range of activities:
We know that people have been finding the latest lockdown and restrictions difficult so we set up regular tea & chat and sing-along sessions to help people chat to others online and have a bit of fun.
• Weekly Health MOTs via zoom • Weekly 30 minute fitness classes via zoom • Fitness discussions to share activities that others are involved in • Book Club • Gardening club • Monthly film club • Weight management and healthy eating sessions • Yoga • Mindfulness • Virtual cafes
young person. We’re continuing to plan new sessions and think of creative ideas of how to get more young people involved in physical, creative and cultural activities that are fun, promote social wellbeing and help to learn new skills meaning that when covid-19 restrictions are lifted there are options to get started with activities straight away.
Social Distanced Walking Prior to the current lockdown, we hosted regular socially distanced walks at a variety of locations including Castleton Canal, Greenbooth Reservoir, Healey Dell and Queens Park. Due to current restrictions, the
walking programme is currently postponed but will restart as soon as we are able to. If you’d like to get involved, please contact sarah.shard@ link4life.org
We’ve received some really nice feedback about how they’re helping people with one lady who attended telling us, “I met some lovely people and we had a good talk and a laugh about all sorts of things. The song performance by Alyson and John was very amusing and we all joined in with the chorus. I’m looking forward to the next one and seeing everyone again.” If you’d like to get involved, please contact sarah.shard @link4life.org
Quiz Night We’ve been doing a regular online quiz night to keep people entertained and give a good way for people to chat with others.
Gentle Exercise Classes Online To support our Older Adults to stay active whilst they are unable to visit the leisure centres, we’ve been running online classes each week. To help them get online, members of our team have worked together with HMR Circle to get tablet computers for those that don’t have access to technology or the internet. Gentle exercise classes include seated and standing options and all exercises can be adapted for any ability, so are beneficial to those managing health conditions such as back pain. There’s also a coffee and chat social on a Friday which has been a fun way to stay in touch or if you would like more information, please contact paul.gardner@ link4life.org
Funding success As a charity, we’ve had real disruption during covid-19 and our industry, like many others, has been severely affected by the pandemic. Usually, revenue generated from health & fitness memberships, swimming lessons, event tickets and other sessions and bookings helps to support the charity and
We had a record turnout for the last one, with 41 taking part!
involved on a weekly basis or as little as a few hours a month.
Due to the success of the weekly quiz, we are looking for volunteers who have an interest in quizzes or a bit of spare time to help out. This can be getting
If you’d like to take part in the weekly quiz, or would like to volunteer to help, please contact sarah.shard@link4life.org
Working in Partnership With the Stroke Association We are continuing to work in partnership with the Stroke Association to offer weekly online Moving Forward after Stroke sessions and Moving On after Stroke courses. These have taken place since March 2020 but as the Stroke Association changes its funding over the next few months, sessions will be moved to our MoveGB online platform so we can continue to offer the weekly sessions.
the activities that we offer to support the local community to be active, creative and healthy, but sadly due to venue closures and social distancing measures being in place when venues were able to open, income has been greatly impacted. In October 2020, we were awarded a grant from the Culture Recovery Fund helping
Outdoor Gentle Exercise Session at Broadfield Park A social distanced gentle exercise session was taking place every week at Broadfield Park. Sadly, due to the current lockdown, the sessions are paused, but we will restart them when we’re able to.
to secure the future of our cultural venues – Middleton Arena, Heywood Civic Centre and Touchstones Museum & Gallery and we’ve recently submitted a bid to the Leisure Recovery Fund, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that a positive result will come our way and further help to support the charity.