Current Events

Women’s Peer Group Sessions

This is a group held every Tuesday open to women from all backgrounds. It is a very informal session that aims to help women integrate into the community while supporting one another and sharing their experiences. 

The main aims of the group are to:

• Socialise and meet other people from a similar background to your own
• Peer support
• Share experiences
• Gain awareness of different topics
• To practise spoken English

IT

There are several computers available for use in the H-CAS office during the drop-in days which can be used to:

• Look for work and available opportunities 
• Seek help with computer related issues from one of our volunteers
• Receive guidance to help to develop computing skills
• Improve English skills with online programs
• Meet new friends

Healthy Living Better Life Project

The “Healthy Living Better Life Project” started after H-CAS received funding from the NHS’  Hull Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). After the success of our previous project (Your Health Your Treasure), H-CAS endeavoured to run another project of a similar nature. This project includes:

1. Body Gospel Sessions – these sessions involve exercising with the Body Gospel DVDs as a group.
2. Workshops – the workshops include talks on the relationship between healthy eating, exercises and mental health. It can be very challenging moving to a new country with a different culture. This can present many challenges to an individual’s mental health, and also for everyday tasks such as buying food, etc. Many of our service users are not familiar with the foods available here or about what constitutes a healthy or balanced diet.
3. Cookery Sessions – this includes talks on health eating and demonstrations of healthy recipes.
4. Gardening Sessions – include talks on gardening as a hobby, and an opportunity to observe the growing of herbs and vegetables with a view to growing one’s own herbs and vegetables
5. Leisure Walks – these walks include staff and service users and monitor how many steps are done by each attendee. Walking is a great way to exercise with minimal strain to the body and is also low cost. Walking not only improves the physical health of those who do it, but also their mental health. 

Previous Events

Your Health Your Treasure (YHYT) Project

After being awarded funding from the Hull Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), H-CAS used this money to create the “Your Health Your Treasure (YHYT)” Project. It became apparent that many of the people accessing the service were not aware of how to eat healthily, or if they did, they were struggling to afford to. This project ran in 2013-2014 and included several sessions as follows:

1. Body Gospel Sessions – this included talks on fitness and nutrition as well as using the Body Gospel DVDs as a group exercise class for those who attended. This helped to encourage the importance of being active alongside eating a healthy, balanced diet.
2. “Boxing for Fitness” sessions – these sessions were led by a boxing instructor and provided an inclusive class for all who attended and catered for individual abilities. Boxing has been shown to not only improve cardiovascular health and promote strong bones and ligaments, but also to be a great form of stress relief.
3. Workshops – there were several workshops arranged which educated those who attended on the relationship between having a healthy lifestyle and improved mental health.
4. Cookery sessions – these sessions included talks on healthy eating as well as demonstrations of cooking healthy recipes. The sessions also focused on being able to eat a healthy diet on a budget with tips and tricks to help save money and find affordable food.
5. Gardening sessions – this included talks on gardening as a hobby. Gardening can be a great stress reliever and a form of mindfulness which can contribute to positive mental health. Attendees were also taught about how to grow their own vegetables even for those who didn’t have their own gardens.
6. Walking groups – Leisure walks were arranged where a group of staff and service users went for walks whilst monitoring the number of steps they had done using pedometers.