The Life Rooms has listened to local feedback and is set to officially open a fourth centre across Merseyside tomorrow when Lee Valley Life Rooms will begin helping residents and the community of south Liverpool.
Having already established successful sites in Walton, Southport and Bootle, in addition to several other drop-in sites across the region, The Life Rooms are now opening a centre at Lee Valley Millennium Centre in the Belle Vale area of Liverpool. It will offer a range of classes and support around different social needs, including housing, finance, social isolation and access to food vouchers and banks.
The new Life Rooms, which opens on 19 May 2022 at 11am with partner organisations and community leaders present, has been established following feedback from existing service users, GPs, community mental health teams with Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and other organisations in the area.
We’ve been very conscious of the demand for The Life Rooms service to become more physically present within this area of Liverpool,” explained Michael Crilly, Mersey Care’s Director of Social and Inclusion and Participation. “Scarcely a week goes by without us receiving as request for such provision and I can completely understand why this is the case. It’s unrealistic for most people living in south Liverpool to travel to Walton from areas such as Garston, Speke, Belle Vale due to travel distance, time and costs, and therefore support around social need is restricted.
What we’ve done with all the Life Rooms sites we’ve established is try to be responsive to their local communities by working alongside people and organisations in the area to understand exactly what’s needed and tailor our services to reflect that.
Given what everyone has been through with the pandemic and the social isolation involved with that and now the cost of living crisis, it’s more important than ever that our Lee Valley Life Rooms is a safe space where individuals can access support that is meaningful and valuable to themselves, families and local communities.
Since opening its first Life Rooms in Walton in 2016, Life Rooms sites have become focal points for their local communities and, after being forced to shut their doors during the pandemic, developed an online learning platform that has been viewed over 30,000 times since March 2020.
After returning to face to face contacts in October 2021, over 11,000 people have visited their sites and over 6,000 people have attended face to face learning sessions in Liverpool and Sefton.