Alternatives Activity Centre

Activity Hubs

Alternatives Activity Centre opened in 1990, as an alternative to the “day centres” that were open at the time. In the years since, it has grown and evolved into our Activity Hubs – two spaces that offers many similar opportunities as our other projects, with the larger space allowing for group exercise classes for a range of abilities, large group discussion and self-advocacy groups, and the chance to help foster social networks between our learners.

The Activity Hubs open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 8.45am and 3.00pm. We operate out of the Watson Rooms attached to St Augustine’s church on Upper Dale Road. We expanded into their Parish Rooms during lockdown to allow us to run a properly socially-distanced service, and now these restrictions have lifted, we have spaces for new learners on all of these days.

There is a large car park behind the church, and a bus stop directly outside. We run group chats every day, with each person being encouraged to talk about at least one thing, or recent experience, to the group. Our staff are trained in safeguarding procedures and regularly explain what this means to the group, making the sessions a great opportunity for self-advocacy, improving self-confidence and encouraging effective conversation skills such as turn-taking and not interrupting.

During lockdown, the importance of being able to use our phones to contact not just friends and family, but doctors, social workers etc. increased dramatically. We recently upgraded our computers, and purchased several iPads to allow our Hub Users to better practise these skills, as well as learn how to use search engines, social media sites, YouTube, and Whatsapp and other messaging apps safely and effectively.

We offer many different opportunities to exercise each day at the Hubs:

• Dance Exercise

• Chair Exercise

• Yoga

• Basketball and Football

• Balloon Badminton

• Guided Relaxation and Stretching

• Group walks around the area's parks

There are also daily groups teaching basic literacy and numeracy, as well practising money-based maths and how to manage a budget. Hub users can volunteer at the Coffee Bar and develop their self-confidence and customer service skills even further by helping out at the Church’s weekly coffee-morning, The Gathering Place, where members of the local community stop by for food and drinks. Some of our users have enjoyed these experiences so much that they have booked a weekly session at our Training Shop.

Being environmentally friendly has always been a focus at Alternatives. We try to instil the importance of this in interesting ways, such as our recently completed art project that was made entirely of recycled plastic. We have a dedicated Arts worker who helps everyone to be creative and to explore the therapeutic benefits of art and craft activities. Many of the photos show our outstanding art creations.

The gardening group we run continues to be a great success, teaching basic gardening and ground maintenance skills. Some of our Hub Users have even become quite enthusiastic about helping out with gardening at home. This success has spread to our Training Shop, where we are in charge of maintaining Spondon Village’s various flower beds and planters, and House 6 where we are currently installing a small garden area.