Hugh Baird College and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust today celebrated the complete transformation of the former St Winefride’s Roman Catholic Church in Bootle into a state of the art health, social care and mental health training facility and Life Rooms.
The celebratory event at the St Winefride’s Campus was attended by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, Yana Williams, Principal and Chief Executive of Hugh Baird College, Executive Director for Mersey Care, Elaine Darbyshire and other key stakeholders.
The transformation was funded with £3.9m from the Local Growth Fund (LGF). LGF funding is awarded to the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and invested through the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s Strategic Investment Fund.
The funds provided by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority have been used to transform the main church into a Health Training Hub, which includes an innovative simulation ward complete with realistic and responsive dummy patients and state-of-art learning environments that will be a base for level 1 to 6 health, social care and mental health training.
On the site of the Church’s former presbytery, a brand new building now houses the third of Mersey Care’s innovative Life Rooms. The Life Rooms Bootle will offer a range of community, social and learning programmes and services to support positive mental health and wellbeing. Additionally, it provides safe spaces and welcoming environments, with access to community resources. The Life Rooms offers real practical support for those wanting to take the next steps in their life journey, whatever those steps may be. The Life Rooms will play a key role in supporting Hugh Baird in strengthening the resilience and wellbeing of its student community as well as offering its full range of mental health support to the residents of South Sefton.
Yana Williams, Principal and Chief Executive of Hugh Baird College, said:
“Our excellent collaboration with Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and other local Foundation Trusts will not only enable more of our students to gain good quality jobs locally, it will ensure our students, particularly those aged between 14 and 18 years of age, have their mental health and wellbeing needs addressed fully. Supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our young people is a key national priority and the new St Winefride’s Campus is an excellent example of how this should be done.”
“The College is also proud to have led on a project that has regenerated a key landmark for the benefit of our local population and we are delighted that the St Winefride’s Campus will support both our students and the local community to improve their life chances.”
Elaine Darbyshire, Mersey Care’s Executive Director of Estates and Communications, said:
“We’re particularly excited to see this unique partnership between Mersey Care and Hugh Baird come to fruition in these beautiful buildings. At Mersey Care we’re more aware than ever of the need to think very differently about the types of services we provide. In this partnership we see health and education come together in a way that clearly recognises that supporting the social and economic life chances of individuals and communities leads to better health outcomes. We believe the impact of this way of working will have a truly transformative effect on the people we serve but also transform how health and education services will work together right across the country.’
‘Our first Life Rooms opened in the Carnegie-designed Walton Library nearly three years ago. Carnegie’s philanthropic intent was driven by the belief that access to beautiful environments would lift people’s spirits, give them hope, and provide them with an horizon of learning and opportunity on which to move forward in life. It’s important that the Life Rooms maintains the Carnegie philosophy of a beautiful place to be and I’m delighted to see our newest Life Rooms live up to this legacy here in this community.”
Steve Rotheram, Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor, said:
“The Combined Authority exists to help transform our city region for the better and encourage inclusive economic growth that benefits us all. This exciting new facility will do just that, by helping our young people to develop the skills they need to thrive in the 21st century, and I am very proud that we are able to support it.”