Middlesbrough 1st

Today marks the start of Learning Disability Awareness Week, and as such we wanted to let you know about some lovely events happening over the course of the week! We're also doing our Pop Up Inclusive Book Club event tomorrow as well to help celebrate!

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead!

Hello everyone! We have a new event coming up next week! Information is included on the poster, we hope to see you there!

Hello everyone, we've got another Brothers and Sisters update for you all!

Last week we enjoyed another colourful session from Samia at Middlesbrough Environment City, making rainbow pasta salad! We tried to add as many different coloured vegetables as possible: red pepper and tomatoes, orange carrot, yellow sweetcorn, green cucumber, purple onion and pink kidney beans. We didn't quite manage blue! The results were some fantastic healthy takeaway salads, thank you Samia!

After lunch Nuvo Dance returned with maracas and scarves for another invigorating seated dance session. Some great participation from our members, as always, and lots of fun! Thank you to Joanna, and to Larchfield for hosting, we look forward to seeing you all again on Thursday 25th June.

Hello again everyone, we're bringing you an update from our April Brothers and Sisters meeting!

For our April session we started the day with a springtime session! Our speaker Dani shared some sunflower inspired art, we sampled roasted seeds, and all planted our own seed in compost. We'd love to see everyone's sunflowers grow and it would be amazing to share pictures of them in bloom later in the season! We then had some time thinking about bees and learning about their different roles in the hive. A good reminder of how important bees are and that planting flowers is one way to help them thrive.

After lunch Steve T returned with a workshop on AI. Steve reminded us that not everything we see and read online is true, before showing us fun ways in which we can use AI to make pictures and music. The result was a fantastic rock song and some fabulous football and Disney portraits. Lots of food for thought as always! A big thank you to Dani, Steve and the team at Larchfield for hosting us once again.

Today marks the start of Mental Health Awareness Week. Taking care of your mental health is as important as ever, and we wanted to do our part to bring awareness to this event by sharing their message. Small actions make a large impact and taking these actions can help you improve your own mental health or give you the information you need to help a loved one that may be struggling. It could be anything from taking walks to talking with friends and family, the important thing is to remember that any action, no matter how small, can lead to change!

We'll provide the link to the event website for those that want to know more, and we send our love to those struggling and hope that they can find their own way to better mental health! Be kind to yourself and be kind to others!

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/mental-health-awareness-week

Happy 1st of May to all our wonderful followers and supporters! We have a small update today with a selection of photos from our March sessions to show you all! With summer just around the corner we're hoping you're all as bright and cheery as the weather has been lately; we'll have more wonderful updates for you all very soon!

Hello everyone, we're bringing you our update for our March session, hope you enjoy!

For our March meeting, our Brothers and Sisters group enjoyed another cookery class with Samia from Middlesbrough Environment City. This time we made 3 different types of pancake - Crepes, American Style, and savoury waffles. After a helpful reminder about keeping an eye on our sugar intake we sampled fruit and syrup toppings. Everyone had the chance to make their own fruit salad too. The savoury waffles had spices and vegetables added into the batter and made a tasty snack on their own!

After lunch we had a singing session with Kaitlin and Si from Grass Roots Music. As ever, some fabulous song choices and beautiful solos too. Thanks to Larchfield for hosting and our guest session leaders for their brilliant input.

We look forward to getting together again on Thursday 23rd April!

This week is Neurodiversity Celebration Week!

Neurodiversity comes in many forms, from dyslexia and ADHD to dyspraxia and autism, but there are often misconceptions and stereotypes that are attributed to those who are neurodiverse as well as the neurodiversity themselves.

This initiative aims to challenge those misconceptions and stereotypes by transforming how neurodiverse individuals are perceived in society by providing organisations, schools and universities around the world with the opportunity to recognise the skills and talents of many neurodiverse individuals past and present!

At Middlesbrough 1st, we love to celebrate all the things that make us different, neurodiversity included so this is an initiative that we love and wanted to make a little post about, if you want to know more, we've included the link to the website below as well as some lovely posters that highlight some people you may not have known were neurodiverse!

https://www.neurodiversityweek.com/

We're bringing you our update for February's Brothers and Sisters meeting, read on to learn more!

We had another great day at our Brothers and Sisters meeting on 19th February. In the morning Loveness from the Northeast Ambulance Service brought us a session all about how to respond to an emergency and get the help we need. She also talked about the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest, and how to help someone in each situation. We really appreciated the practical demonstrations and clear information.

After lunch our friend Denise shared the exciting story of how she took part in the game show Deal or No Deal. We were on the edge of our seats waiting to see what she would win (no spoilers here!). It was great to hear how well the show had accommodated Denise and the lovely Sherpa, both on and off screen.

Two inspirational sessions and a big thank you to our speakers and their helpers, Ambreen and Mario, and of course Camphill Village Trust at Larchfield for hosting!

Hello once again, everyone! We've got an update from January's Brothers and Sisters meeting here for you!

We started the year with a wonderful creative workshop where local artist Mary introduced us to painting with watercolours and we also had the chance to make our own New Year word wreaths; Each person chose a word for 2026, and then used different techniques to surround it with a circle of flowers - beautiful results!

In the afternoon we all enjoyed a seated dance class with Joanna from Nuvo Dance. Fantastic tunes and a real workout for our arms and legs! We had a lot of fun, a big thank you to Joanna, Mary and of course the team at Larchfield Community for hosting us once again.