Serene retreat earns award nomination

Lake House Holistic Centre in Ashford has been nominated for the 2024 Kent Mental Wellbeing Awards.

The venue offers a community and corporate retreat and provides a wide range of holistic wellness therapies in an effort to promote the importance of maintaining good mental health for everyone.

The site was purchased back in 2021 by new owners, Lisa and Steve, who refurbished the property and its grounds. It now offers a wide range of holistic therapies such as Reiki treatment, Child and Adolescent Therapy, and Thai Yoga Massage, in addition to serving as a venue space for weddings, funerals, baby showers and pet celebration of life ceremonies.

Lake House Kent provide the community with a safe and relaxing space for individuals to focus on their mental wellbeing and try, perhaps for the first time, different holistic therapies. Practitioners are encouraged to meet with each other every month to collaborate and talk about their experiences.

Since the majority of participants are women, Lake House Kent are looking to recruit more men to their programmes by offering introductory sessions designed to support them and their families through difficult periods. Lake House Kent also offer free taster sessions for individuals in the corporate sphere so that employees can focus on their mental wellbeing away from work and they allow a local Community Interest Company to use their garden free of charge for sessions with children for equine-facilitated learning.

The past few years have not been without significant challenge for Lake House Kent. The renovation following the purchase of the venue was self-funded which forced Lisa to work full time, and they also sponsor a weekly wellbeing show on Ashford radio. They’ve continued to make improvements to the venue, including building more quiet and calm spaces, installing a coffee shop and ensuring that the energy they use comes from renewable sources.

The Kent Mental Wellbeing Awards is an annual event designed to showcase the people, organisations and initiatives that help us cope with life. The event’s three themes are: kindness and compassion; wellbeing; mental health.

Whether it is in school, business, community or family, so many of us have been lucky to have people and organisations with ideas, tips and tactics to help us cope. It is time to celebrate those mental health and well-being champions in our community and share this best practice.

The awards will be staged in October by the mental health charity Mind in Bexley and East Kent in collaboration with a range of wellbeing and mental health organisations.

Nominations can be linked to a simple act of kindness that lifted the spirits, a business that has improved staff wellbeing, through to a targeted initiative delivered by a charity or statutory organisation to support a mental health issue.

The event is sponsored by Kent County Council, Kent Community Foundation, ADM Computing, GrainLNG – National Grid, Medway Council, Optyma Security, Wave Community Bank, Cactus Graphics and CommunityAid.

Submit nominations at www.kentmentalwellbeingawards.org.uk  The deadline to submit a nomination is noon on 1 September.

For awards news follow @KentMWAwards on Facebook and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.