Wellspring Settlement Welcomes Headway Bristol!

Wellspring Settlement are excited to welcome Headway Bristol, the charity for survivors of brain injuries, who will be joining us as tenants from September!

After nine years, Headway Bristol will be leaving their premises at Frenchay, and will be a welcome addition to our Wellspring Site in Beam Street. They will be taking up residence in the ground floor space vacated by Boots Chemist several years ago.
Wellspring Settlement will be one of two new hubs Headway will be operating from; they will also be opening a new hub in Bradley Stoke, and continue to run services from their existing hubs in the Greenway Centre and the Withywood Centre.
Headway have over 40 years’ experience in helping survivors and families living with brain injuries, supporting people to live as independently as possible. They provide social and cognitive rehabilitation for adults with brain injury, and work to maximise quality of life, independence and self-esteem.

This is a perfect fit for Wellspring Settlement’s Beam Street site, which was originally conceived 20 years ago as Wellspring Healthy Living Centre. As well as providing space for a GP surgery, the organisation has a history of delivering services to support community health, and providing space for other organisation who do this, including school nurses, midwives and counsellors. Many other charities and services in Bristol rent rooms to deliver healthy cooking, art for wellbeing, and physical activity sessions, making use of the accessible building, parking and convenient location.

Headway will be making use of the specialist rooms on offer to give their service users opportunities to increase their abilities and wellbeing through art, movement and life skills. All of these will be on offer on the same site as their consultations and ongoing support sessions.

Headway Bristol CEO Mari Holcombe said “It’s the end of an era for Headway after being in Frenchay for so long. But we’re really looking forward to this new chapter. It will be great to see our service users make use of all the facilities at Wellspring Settlement and we’re looking forward to working together in the future!”

Following the merger with Barton Hill Settlement, another key local charity, in 2020, Wellspring Settlement’s remit now includes community and advice work. Across both sites, Wellspring Settlement hosts a number of tenant organisations, including Bristol Somali Resource Centre, Changes Bristol, Bristol Refugee Rights, as well as being closely linked with a whole range of other local community organisations. This existing network will enable Headway to work more closely with other organisations, and engage with the community to increase understanding of brain injuries.

Wellspring Settlement CEO Beth Wilson said: “I’m really excited to have Headway joining us as a new tenant. The former pharmacy space has been empty for a couple of years now as we’ve been working out what next after the closure of the pharmacy but when Headway came along looking for space it felt like the perfect fit. Our values as organisations align well and we’re really looking forward to this not just being a tenant/landlord relationship with Headway but a new partnership benefitting the local community.”

This news comes at an exciting time as Wellspring Settlement not only gears up to open a new youth centre, located in the site of The Swan pub next to the Settlement Site on Ducie Road, but also as plans are being made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Wellspring Site and former Healthy Living Centre. This site was officially opened in November 2004 after being planned and developed by a committed group of local people, many of whom are still involved with the organisation.
The new youth club is due to be opened in October, after two years of development work with local young people and a huge building project.

The 20th anniversary celebration will be on Wednesday November 20th, and will be open to anyone who wants to drop in, just click here for more information. This event will give people the opportunity to get together and celebrate this important community asset with food, music and activities. Residents will be able to see what services are on offer from Wellspring Settlement and how they can get involved, have a look at the new youth club, and meet many of our tenant organisations, including Headway!