Compass Recovery College

Whether you’re looking to develop your knowledge and skills in self-management, you are supporting someone with mental health-related challenges, or you work in mental health services, we’re delighted to welcome you on a learning journey. We offer a wide range of workshops that are an educational route to recovery from mental health challenges and increasing positive wellbeing. You don’t need a referral from a clinician or service to enrol. As a participant, you can choose which workshops interest you or suit your needs.

Compass Recovery College is a mental health and wellbeing organisation based in Reading, Berkshire, UK, commissioned by Reading Borough Council.

We provide free workshops and social groups for anyone in the area aged 18 or over who may be affected directly or indirectly by mental health or wellbeing challenges. Everyone is welcome and everyone is a participant. So whether you are struggling yourself, or perhaps you are a carer, family member or professional who would like to know more about mental health and wellbeing, we can help.

We start from a place of hope, with the belief that learning about our mental health and wellbeing with the right tools can give us more control for the future. We believe that self-management and making the most of our strengths can help us recover from challenges and become experts in our own wellbeing. With a variety of workshops delivered by staff and peer support volunteers with lived experience of mental health challenges, we hope you’ll find the way we do things refreshingly different.

Our philosophy

A safe space

We provide a supportive, friendly environment, where participants can learn and share experiences and ideas in confidence and comfort in order to develop skills for life.

Supportive

We will do our best to meet the needs of every participant that wishes to develop and take control to manage their life.

Open to all

We welcome anyone aged 18 or over with lived experience of mental illness or life challenges, as well as their friends, family, carers, mental health practitioners and clinicians.

Together

All workshops are developed and delivered by people who can call upon their own lived experience of mental health and life issues, together with clinically trained staff.

This is at the heart of the Recovery College and supports a diverse perspective on living with mental health challenges.