Jac Lewis Foundation
Mental health and wellbeing has become an increasingly important issue in recent years, as many people struggle to cope with the pressures of everyday life – and that’s before the arrival of the pandemic and all the negative effects it has had on mental and physical health. To support the people of Ammanford and Surrounding areas in times of mental health need, Cyfle Building Skills are very proud to be supporting the Jac Lewis Foundation in a range of projects and fundraisers. The Jac Lewis Foundation was founded by members of Ammanford AFC to honour the life of popular Ammanford sportsman, Jac Lewis, whose struggle with mental health has made a huge impact on his community and everyone who knew him.
To honour Jac, the foundation was founded with the aims of providing mental health and wellbeing support to the local community through a range of services such as counselling, bereavement support, wellbeing courses and workshops, telephone services and community mental health first aid training.
The Jac Lewis Foundation aims to ensure that anybody in Ammanford and surrounding areas suffering with their mental health has a professional service to help them, and ultimately help to prevent suicide. Cyfle Building Services are dedicated to supporting the Jac Lewis Foundation in whatever ways we can, and recently used our skills to support them in their project to build a wellbeing centre in Ammanford recreation ground, adjoining the football ground.
The wellbeing centre was opened at the end of 2020, and has been providing much-needed mental health services to the community ever since, with Cyfle’s regional manager, Anthony Rees, playing a big role in getting the centre up and running.
Jac Lewis Foundation
In the last 12 months the charity has helped hundreds of people of all ages work through mental health challenges through its services.
Liz Thomas-Evans, the foundation’s counsellor said that the need in support for mental health difficulties in the area has been exacerbated this year by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown conditions.
“Mental health services and the NHS are experiencing an increase in demand for their services and people in Carmarthenshire can wait months for support,” she said.
“With the backing of GPs in the Amman Valley as well as other youth services, we can offer easy access to mental health support locally.
“The fact that the GPs are referring patients to us shows that there is a need for this kind of service in the area.”
Anthony Rees, who helped set up the project and works with Cyfle Building Skills a Regional Apprenticeship programme employing young people, said the purpose of the charity and the services is to develop a proactive support network and ultimately prevent suicide.
“That is what this is all about,” said Anthony, pointing at the centre, which was constructed with the support of students on an apprenticeship programme.
He added: “There is clearly a need for this type of service in the area – that is why it was set up, but this year has seen people struggle even more because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We understand that a lot of Apprentices are green when first going out onto site. It can be scary, intimidating and stressful for them. We want to help the Apprentice as much as we can, which in return will help you as an industry.
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If you have any questions our Cyfle support team would be happy to help.
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