Sacred Shed Wellbeing

Chanctonbury Leisure Centre, Storrington: organised, planned & staffed Mental Health Awareness Week stall, as part of BHT Sussex Mental health recovery services.  NHS Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust : 17 years service. Short Breaks for Carers: AGE UK Citizens Advice Horsham (Debt & Mental Health 6 month project, report & speech given at WSX Mind AGM). Carers Support Charity, West Sussex : Compiled & delivered mental health tools workshop. Quick wellbeing tips for busy carers. Chanctonbury Leisure Centre: World Mental Health Day event 2024. RSPB & Men Walk Talk : Mental Health Awareness Week event 2025. Grow Wellbeing charity Brighton & Hove. Southend Social Services Day centre. Redbridge Social Services Day centre.   

 These images are both photos I took when I allowed myself a 'moment'. The tree is in Kingley Vale ancient woods & the rose & bee were in my garden.  https://youtu.be/vudmHPMyPV4?is=3m_0jSyrH_zRd2Rf The healing power of nature always fascinated me & I referred myself to a woman only therapeutic allotment group several years ago.  I turned up, checked who the participants were & then sadly & reluctantly walked away without entering the allotment gates. It transpired there was a lady I worked with attending it, a lady I knew as a service user. A year or 2 later I had really grappled with the frustration of how I'd really wanted to experience nature therapy & not have to worry about privacy or boundaries or awkwardness. I worked in Brighton & Hove community mental health teams for over 10 years & worked out I probably knew about 500-700 service users. It wasn't that I didn't wish to see them but I knew it would be a boundary & privac...

- Do you work in a industry where people naturally offload their troubles to you? (e.g. Beauty/holistic wellbeing/hairdressers/care/health). And do you feel concerned you're not saying the right things / doing enough? - Sacred Shed could offer some support, guidance & reassurance to you and your staff team.  - Are you feeling overwhelmed or stuck & need some support from someone who understands anxiety / low mood / overwhelm / emotional dysregulation. -  Do you feel ready for a change in your life but can't seem to prioritise, reach or even set goals for yourself? - Are you feeling isolated, overwhelmed or burnt out & at a loss as to where to start helping yourself.  - Do you feel physically too tired or vulnerable to leave the house alone & just need some regular, trusted, friendly support to get out the house. - Are you anxious on public transport & need some Graded Exposure work to help you gain confidence over time. - Do you spend the majority of t...

I've been in situations where I've felt like the person leading a course, a manager at work, some amazing training or a friend I've seen, or retreat leader etc seemed so wise, so learned & so calm, that in my earlier years this would convince me they had perfect lives. I can honestly say I don't think this is ever the case.  I don't think anyone has it all worked out. I think we all have somewhere in our lives where we sense a shortfall or an overwhelm or that awful word...feel a failure in some way, or another terrible word...a burden. I believe & I have seen & experienced myself, that you can do every single healthy thing possible in your life - emotionally, spiritually (& by that I mean doing things good for your soul, to feed your personal spirit, things that make you you & bring you joy) & physically and still not feel great.  It's how life is some times. And it's okay to not be okay.  We were not designed to be 'go go go...

Psychology Degree, Bsc (Hons); University of East London. 1 year certificate in Rogerian Counselling skills. Hills Rd College, Cambridge. Art Psychotherapy Foundation Year, Goldsmiths College, London. Fundamentals of Trauma; Alison.com 30 years of completing annual mandatory training in mental health & elderly care settings including: GDPR Safeguarding Adults Equality Diversity & Inclusivity Mental Health First Aider Lone working In addition (non mandatory): Grassroots Suicide Prevention: on adhoc peer advisory board to help inform service development & delivery. LGBTQIA issues & awareness. Allsorts. Neurodivergent Affirming Practice: THINK Neurodivergent UK Nature Facilitation Training : Change in Nature, at Hawkwood Agricultural College, Stroud. Introduction to Social & Therapeutic Horticulture : Thrive.org. Centre for Ecotherapy, Stanmer Organics, Brighton. CELTA (Certificate in teaching English to speakers of other languages), International House, Barcelona CPD ...

I'm Sam, (Samantha Hunt) I'm 51 and I’ve worked in a wide range of health settings over the past 33 years, underpinned by studies in counselling and psychology.  Up until the end of May 2026 I ran specialist emotional wellbeing workshops and established & facilitated community discussion groups & goal focused 1:1s for the charities BHT Sussex & Wsx Mind. I have also worked part-time in elderly care for a local agency for the past 2 years, where I offer companionship via company calls.  Over the years I have successfully set up pilot projects that are, to my knowledge, still running. These include a community Home Support Team in Essex for the elderly & a Community Team offering short-term practical support to people attached to NHS, ATS mental health services, I continued to work in that team for 10 years & loved the autonomy, variety, flexibility & holistic nature of that community role.  I've also worked in residential rehabilitative units, 2 soc...

Sacred Shed as a Holistic service: Cost of Living is part of wellbeing: Unfortunately in these modern times cost of living is a daily news topic & for many a daily worry & struggle. Cost of living issues effect our emotional wellbeing & having an awareness of what support services are out there can feel truly liberating & a massive relief & help. I count myself very lucky to have offered to be part of a Cost of Living project & I got to work alongside Citizens Advice for it's duration. We learnt so much from each others services & I believe both services really gained a deeper understanding of the support our respective services offered and that in turn helped the people who accessed both our services. I was working for a mental health charity at the time & gave a synopsis of how the co produced project felt so valuable to both the services & those that were referred in to the project.  The collaborative way of working during the projects duratio...

  My favourite quote at the moment is "you can't drink from an empty cup".   I have recently been part of a project funded by AGE UK that offered support to carers who were seeking support within the mental health/emotional wellbeing and/or recovery services themselves. And I found myself referring to this quote a lot. And this quote & advice is applicable to us all, but particularly when we view someone else in our life as having more support needs than us, so others get priority over ourselves.   There are particular common needs that surface when a person is a carer & there is support out there, the difficulty is carers are often far too busy to be able to access it. And they are often very tired too & some suffer carer burnout which is such a debilitating thing to experience & can feel so hard to address & overcome alone. Life is always a tricky balance & a carer role makes it even more of a juggle - there are only so many hours in a ...

A few years ago whilst sitting in my shed with my beloved cat Monty, I started with a vision board, a collage of ideas, images cut out from magazines, how I wanted my life & career to look & ways I could help others. It started by me thinking my actual garden could be a local healing garden, as I could see it was helping me, as was my separate shed space. But protective, sensible friends suggested this was *my* safe space & I heeded their advice & concerns that by opening it up I'd be depriving myself of a safe / sacred space for myself to "decompress".  I've worked in care settings of some description my entire working life since I was about 19 or 20. Over that time I gradually began to realise the difficulty some practitioners had in finding their own support. As that support needed separation from colleagues & services they worked for. Talking about & valuing Lived Experience is far more commonplace now but this has only really been the case...