Our projects

Thanks to the support of the amazing people from GambleAware, We are able to organize 2 therapy groups for people that are struggling with gambling, connected to 1:1 support for the ones affected the worst. Our experience so far has proven that when a person struggles with addiction, its not only them who suffers, but their closest relatives as well – which is why have organised a group for the direct victims of addiction, as well as for their family members, partners etc.

The groups are meeting once per week in Worcester and in Evesham. The activities are ran by a professional therapist in pair with a licenced psychologist. When its necessary, we also offer 1:1 sessions to make sure the therapy will have a long-lasting effect.

As a part of the project, we also organize extra workshops - Dance, art, hiking, handicraft, planning your budget and more. There are currently over 60 people benefitting from them, and we are quite excited to help them get through the struggle of gambling - by replacing the trill of a bet with a simple joy of living.

What makes this project to stand out from the rest is our approach, and sustainable growth. When it comes to treating people, we want to move away from the XXth century paradigm that stigmatizes substance misusers for life. We guide people towards abstinency and we still know that once you recover from substance misuse, you will never be able to use them again - but we believe it is not a defining factor, and once someone gets through their struggle, they are able to live a normal life. In our book, there is no such thing as "non-drinking alcoholic" - we truly believe that, after getting through, you are just a regular person that chooses not to drink.

Second unique element of our project is its sustainable growth. There are around 1.5 million Eastern Europeans living in the UK as of now, and we believe around 5% of them qualifies immediately for therapy with serious mental health conditions. That means that 75 000 people annualy are left without proper support in their national language - which is a far cry from our goal of supporting 1000 people per year.

That is why we are currently developing a training program with CPCAB to be able to train our own councillors, who will be able to provide a wide range of support in affordable group setup. Our hope is that, once the project is finished, Yellow Scarf will be able to grow beyond Midlands and help thousands of people every year.

One of the most effective forms of therapy is "walk and talk", which combines the healing effect of enjoying nature with a non-invasive form of light therapy, where people can talk about small things that disturb them in order to sort them out and secure small moments of peace of mind, to strenghten their mental health and enable them to tackle bigger issues on their own.

WCF was kind enough to fund these activities, and thanks to them we are able to talk to over 40 different refugees, twice a month, in most cenic sceneries of Worcestershire.