16 December 2019

A pilot of Mersey Care's Life Rooms is opening at the Playhouse in 2020 to provide support to marginalised and isolated adults in the City Centre area.

Life Rooms at the Playhouse is supported through a £40,343 grant from Space to Connect - a partnership between Co-op Foundation and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The programme will provide support to marginalised and isolated adults in the City Centre area. Operating every Monday and Tuesday from 10am-4pm, the project aims to build on the services Mersey Care already deliver across the Liverpool City Region to improve wellbeing, build skills and to increase confidence and self-esteem.

With the expertise of both Mersey Care and Everyman & Playhouse staff, users will have the opportunity to engage in art-related activities at the Playhouse such as story-telling, performing arts and craft.

Fiona Gibson, interim chief executive at Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse Theatres, said:

“With the need for wellbeing services at an all-time high in our city, we are delighted to be able to use the Playhouse as a social hub by day for creativity and inclusion.  

“We are thrilled to be working in collaboration with our key health partner, Mersey Care, to deliver this pilot, and are indebted to  ’Space to Connect’ for helping us fund this short project. 

“This is our opportunity to share our belief and passion that culture really does make a difference to the communities we serve. It is a tangible symbol that health and wellbeing really is at the heart of everything we do, from a night out at the theatre to the creative and social change activities we engage in by day.”

Mersey Care’s Life Rooms model is already successfully operating in Walton Library, Hugh Baird College, and Southport, with a new site at South Liverpool Treatment Centre in Garston. It is hoped a space in Liverpool City Centre will give increased opportunity for people who cannot visit a Life Rooms site to access their services.

Michael Crilly, director of social and inclusion and participation at the Life Rooms, said:

“I’m delighted we’re able to announce this innovative partnership with The Everyman and Playhouse Theatres.

“Since Liverpool’s Capital of Culture, Mersey Care has nurtured a large number of creative and cultural partnerships in such a way they’ve now become integral elements of the care we deliver. It is truly wonderful to be able to physically situate one of our phenomenally successful Life Rooms’ services within the Playhouse as opposed to within a conventional clinical centre. In developing The Life Rooms model we have started to unlock the potential of our community and public spaces in a way that I think is unique.

“It’s vital we take our social model of health to the city centre in order to more effectively meet the many and varied needs of all that city life presents. Through this partnership we seek to expand our reach to the homeless; to sex-workers; to students; to BAME and LGBT communities as well as to the many diverse communities living and working within the City Centre. We look forward to working with our colleagues at The Everyman & Playhouse Theatres to reach out most especially to individuals and communities on the margins of conventional service delivery.”

The pilot project for Life Rooms at the Playhouse will open to the public on Monday 13 January 2020 and runs until Tuesday 31 March. For more information on the services Life Rooms already provide, please visit www.liferooms.org.