Our Projects
As a social enterprise our cafe income, revival retreat, donations and grant funding are the fuel that power our social impact and ability to undertake our project work to support the mental health and wellbeing of our community.
Our offering combines permanent projects, such as our peer support and mentoring, cafe pay-it-forward and the informal support and initiatives within the cafe space.
We are also committed to responding to need, innovating and prioritising creative wellbeing with specific targeted projects such as our Ways to Wellbeing Exhibition, Be Our Guest sessions and our Community Quilt: A Stitch Together with artist Nicole Bates. You can read about some of these projects on our Impact and Evaluation page.
Mental Health Bank
The Mental Health Bank (MHB) is a co-produced community response to the growing mental health crisis, working together to protect and improve local mental wellbeing. We hope to address many of the barriers to accessing alternative or complementary approaches such as financial, emotional, mental health struggles, anxiety, simply feeling it is not for you, or not knowing what a particular approach involves or how it can help.
The MHB allows people to try an approach for free without commitment, and hopefully they land on something that will suit and support them and then they can continue to access it through the MHB for as long as they and their practitioner agree is needed. It runs on Monday evenings: click here to find out more.
Peer Support
Revival facilitates a variety of peer support groups throughout the week every week, these include: MenTalk, MenTalkWalk, Women’s Wellness, Make, Mend & Motivate, WildWellbeing and Walking for Wellbeing. Everyone is welcome to join these friendly and welcoming groups.
These free groups are there for everyone to drop in and unwind, talk about their worries, connect with others and most of all know that they are not alone.
“This group gives me such strength and hope, it makes me glad that my attempts at taking my own life weren’t successful because I now know what I would have missed out on in life” (MenTalk group participant)
MenTalk
MenTalk is a drop in for men where you can unwind, talk, listen and make local connections in a friendly supportive social space. We meet every Wednesday from 6-7pm at Revival Food & Mood, Whitstable. See our social media and events for more details and contact MenTalk Peer Support Group Whitstable (East Kent Mind)
Chatty Tuesday: Greet Meet and Eat (Open 10am to 3pm)
The café is open as normal but with a special warm welcome to anyone in need of a natter. We know a friendly chat can brighten your day, especially if you are living alone, are new to the area, work from home, or newly retired so we have our lovely staff and volunteers in throughout the day to turn up the talk and help you connect with others.
Women’s Wellness
The group is a friendly, welcoming female space for of all ages to come together to chat, listen, share wellbeing journeys and support each other. We meet every Wednesday at 10am in Revival Food & Mood, Whitstable. See our social media events on Facebook for details Women’s Wellness Peer Support Group (Revival)
Make Mend & Motivate
Join our Mood Menders at our crafty and creative group with a focus on embroidery and sewing. Come along to learn or share new skills, meet or make new friends and restore and relax. Every Friday 10-12pm Revival Food & Mood, Whitstable. FREE to attend.
Revival Lates: Late night Social space for young people (under 25s
11 to 16yrs – 3:30pm to 6:30pm
16 to 25yrs – 7pm to 9:30pm
A safe space for friends to meet, to have time away from home, school, college or work, with no obligation to buy and no pressure to leave. We have music, board games, comfy seating and will work with young people to develop how the space and time is used.
Walking for Wellbeing
Walking for wellbeing is open to all. It is a friendly relaxed group helping you to connect with nature, the community and your local area. You can walk and talk, walk and watch or just walk your way knowing you are not alone.
We meet in various locations within the Canterbury District and walk for about an hour from 10am every Sunday, details can be found on our Facebook events – Walking for Wellbeing Revival East Kent Mind.
Cuppa Club
Taking place every Tuesday between 9 and 10am, the Cuppa Club is a friendly social space to come and enjoy a chat and a cup of tea or coffee. So if you live alone, feel lonely, are new to the area, are recently retired or may be recently bereaved, or just love meeting new people the Cuppa Club is for you. Pop in to connect with others and take a step towards building new friendships. Free Tea, Coffee and biscuits.
Pay-it-Forward
Revival has been committed to the ethos of the pay-it-forward movement since it opened in 2017 – little acts of individual kindness, that together, make a big difference.
Revival brings Food and Community together and we want to make sure nobody gets left behind. Our pay-it-forward therefore allows those who can, to pay a little more on the end of their bill or to donate directly into our pay-it-forward, this allows us to provide free meals to those who need it.
Be Our Guest sessions
There are so many wonderful wellbeing stories and businesses in our community, we thought it was a great opportunity to invite people to share their experiences with our groups. Sharing stories, experiences, help and support is at the core of our peer support initiatives and our programme of guest speakers builds on this. It offers an opportunity to hear the stories of other local people, how their own lived experience has shaped their life and business decisions and often been the catalyst for big changes.
Our guest speakers have given their time freely to share their knowledge and experience in the hope it may help or inspire others, many have made wellbeing their business, all are passionate about mental health and wellbeing. More details of these sessions can be found on our dedicated Be Our Guest page.
Mentoring
Revival works alongside East Kent Mind on a goal-oriented Mentoring service. This is a six month programme focusing on helping participants to improve their mental health and wellbeing. The mentoring relationship is one of mutual trust and respect, mentors use their own lived experience and knowledge to support and empower mentees to engage and work towards positive mental health, identifying solutions and taking action that is right for them. Working in this way can reassure mentees that they are not alone in how they are feeling and that they can move forward in connecting with others giving them a sense of belonging.
Mentees are matched with one of our trained Mental Health Mentors who provide 1-2-1 support to encourage them to value their strengths, build their self-esteem and confidence and help them to feel more hopeful about the future. Using the accredited Recovery Star model, along with weekly discussion, they will be able to see clear evidence of their progress, helping them to improve motivation, enhance their skills and gain empowerment and choice.
