Patrick Vernon

Hackney Thinking Spaces Returns: Creating Safe Spaces for Healing, Creativity, and Community

Hackney Thinking Spaces is back this spring, continuing its vital work to create safe, supportive environments for communities to explore mental health, racial trauma, and healing. The programme is guided by a Community Advisory Board, chaired by Professor Patrick Vernon OBE, which plays an independent role in shaping spaces that are culturally informed, inclusive, and rooted in the lived experiences of local communities.

This spring, three free six-week creative support programmes are being delivered for Black and Global Majority communities across Hackney. Each programme centres wellbeing, creativity, and peer support, offering participants a space to reflect, connect, and heal together.

The programmes include:

SEND Stars – for Black and Global Majority families and children
📍 Hackney Ark | Saturdays | 21 March – 25 April

Reason 2 Heal – for Black and Global Majority men aged 25+
📍 Shoreditch Town Hall | Thursdays | 26 February – 2 April

Her Story – for young Black and Global Majority women aged 12–19
📍 Morningside Community Centre | Saturdays | 28 February – 4 April

All sessions are co-facilitated by I Found Me Counselling CIC, with the support of Hackney Council and the Community Advisory Board. Together, partners are working to ensure these spaces are not only safe, but empowering, placing lived experience, cultural understanding, and community voice at the centre of wellbeing support.

Hackney Thinking Spaces recognises that mental health support must go beyond traditional clinical settings. By using creative approaches and peer-led dialogue, the programmes aim to reduce stigma, address the impact of racial trauma, and build collective resilience within families, young people, and men in the community.

Community members are encouraged to share this opportunity widely across networks. Those working in community wellbeing, education, mental health, or equity are also invited to connect and explore how collaborative approaches can strengthen local support systems.

Registration is now open:
🔗 https://shorturl.at/Oj5HD

For more information:
📧 info@ifoundmecounselling.co.uk
📞 0208 145 5532