A New Year reflection on holding hope in our therapeutic communities
- Laura J
- 22 hours ago
- 3 min read
As we welcome in the New Year, we have been reflecting a lot on hope, and what it can mean for our residents and staff in our therapeutic communities, and the hope we hold as an organisation at a time when, like so many other charities, we are dealing with tighter budgets and growing demand for support, as we look to the year ahead.
The start of a new year can bring a mix of emotions. It follows the festive season, a time for joy, but which can also be a time when social expectations around family, togetherness, and celebrations can increase feelings of loneliness, conflict, money worries, or stress.
Staff in our communities work hard during this time to create a safe space to celebrate for those who want to, while also holding space for how difficult it can be.
In each of our communities, there’s emphasis on time spent together to provide that community support. At Highams Lodge, residents made a beautiful wreath for the front door, and at Lilias Gillies House, they decorated the tree together.
At Mount Lodge, residents and staff had lunch and organised a Secret Santa with thoughtful homemade gifts (pictured right) for each other, which touched several people.
Staff also hold space for residents and each other to feel listened to, or to spend time alone, knowing they are safe within a supportive community.
In January, the ‘New Year, New You’ messages encourage change, renewal, and resolutions.
But another year passing can highlight the chasm between where someone is and where they want to be.
These feelings are common, and we know from conversations with residents that this can sometimes come with feelings of shame or not feeling good enough to achieve their goals.
Vikki H, our Lived Experience Coordinator, said that
“When we have experienced trauma, had a challenging start in life, or haven’t had people who believe in us or see our strengths before, hope can sometimes feel out of reach. We might have hoped for things before and experienced disappointment in services and systems we went to for support. Sometimes we feel like we don’t deserve good things, or we doubt our abilities or the world around us.”
What hope means to us and our relationship with it can be deeply personal. But hope matters, especially in mental health, because hope can encourage perseverance even when things feel challenging. Hope might mean the strength to get through the day.
Hope can start as simply as realising there could be a different way to be, that change might be possible.
This can be grown through experiencing connection, feelings of safety, taking on realistic challenges, enjoying the successes, surviving when things don’t go well, feeling like someone else believes in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself. It is then that we may be able to build on these feelings of hope and start to trust that there are different ways of relating and coping possible for us. It takes time, though, and it takes work from our residents and our staff.
As one resident shared in her blog post, “Mental Health is not Pretty”, which described her recovery journey with CHT, when staff initially told her they would ‘continue to hold the hope’ for her, she became angry and told them to stop wasting their time, acknowledging later in her journey that they didn’t give up, and they weren’t wasting their time.
As we begin 2026, we want to recognise these challenges and the support within our communities during this difficult time.
Our biggest hope for 2026 is that everyone - our residents, staff, and supporters - will feel it’s possible, or at least start to feel it’s possible, to have hopes, wishes, and goals they believe they can reach.
