Frazzled Cafe at Harpenden

Frazzled Cafe at Harpenden

In partnership with The Harpenden Trust, we are delighted to offer face-to-face Frazzled Cafe meetings to the people of Harpenden. The Harpenden Trust has supported its local area since 1948, and has over 500 volunteers working together throughout the year delivering community projects for families and individuals in the town. Please contact harpenden@frazzledcafe.org if you have any questions about the work of The Harpenden Trust and their face to face sessions.

Just like our online sessions, these meetings are a supportive, non-judgemental and confidential space where people who are feeling overwhelmed or frazzled can talk openly and feel heard. Speaking is optional, anyone is welcome to just come along and listen.

Our face-to-face meetings in Harpenden last for 1 hour and are run by local volunteers who have all completed full Frazzled Cafe facilitator training. Doors open 15 minutes before the start for refreshments in the Well Bean Cafe before we move to the lounge for the meeting.

Meetings take place weekly (except Bank Holidays) at:
The Harpenden Trust Halls, 130a Southdown Road, AL5 1PU.
Parking is available in the co-op car park. Entrance is via the main doors and up the stairs on Southdown Rd or via rear doors from the Co-Op car park where there is lift access.

Walking into a new place can be daunting, so one of our friendly Frazzled Cafe team will be there to welcome you and offer you a cuppa. Please be sure to arrive on time, as the doors are locked at 19:50.

As there are limited spaces per meeting, please sign up via the booking page to attend, and cancel your place either using the booking instructions or by emailing team@frazzledcafe.org if you can no longer come so that someone on the waiting list can take your space. For any questions please email harpenden@frazzledcafe.org

You can see the Harpenden at Frazzled Cafe meetings schedule and book to attend below. If you would like to attend a meeting on a Bank Holiday, please feel free to join one of our online meetings via the main ‘Meetings’ page.

Frazzled Cafe Guidelines

To help ensure that our meetings run smoothly and in line with the values of Frazzled Cafe, we ask that all participants agree to follow these guidelines:

• To act with integrity. Please respect one another’s confidentiality. Please do not name anyone or discuss anything you may hear in another meeting.

• To treat everyone, including our volunteers, with respect, consideration, and kindness. Any threatening or abusive behaviour will not be tolerated and will result in removal from the meeting.

• To let everyone have a voice. Please respect one another by giving everybody the chance to contribute without interruption and by not dominating or disrupting the conversation. The facilitator may show a white card to signal the end of a speaker’s turn.

• To listen without offering solutions. Please focus your contribution on personal experiences and not political/thematic concepts. When speaking please focus on what resonates with you personally, not on providing answers or solutions to others.

• To be kind to ourselves and each other. This is NOT group therapy and no one should feel under pressure to say anything. We do hope that in hearing others’ experiences you will feel encouraged to share your own. Whether you speak or not, please treat each other in a supportive and considerate way.

• To welcome people from all backgrounds and points of view. We have no religious, political or commercial affiliations and ask that participants refrain from promoting any that they might have.

• To be present. To benefit fully from the session and stay present in the room, please try to avoid distractions from phones or other devices.

FAQs

The Harpenden Trust supports individuals, families and young people in need, providing financial assistance for community projects in Harpenden (https://www.theharpendentrust.org.uk/).

The Trust partners with MIND in Mid Herts and the local PCN (the Primary Care Network of 3 GP surgeries) to run the Harpenden Wellbeing Hub. It supports Harpenden residents who have concerns about their mental wellbeing at an early stage before they become unwell and need secondary interventions such as counselling or cognitive behavioural therapy.

An in-person Frazzled Cafe is therefore a fantastic part of the Hub; it gives people of all ages and backgrounds a regular opportunity to be heard by a supportive group of peers.

Harpenden Trust/Frazzled Cafe Facilitated meetings last for one hour and start with a run-through of our guidelines. This is to ensure confidentiality is respected and that there is a safe environment for those that would like to share.

Each meeting opens and closes with a short mindfulness exercise. You don’t need to ever have tried mindfulness before, and your participation in these exercises is completely optional. After the mindfulness exercise, if you would like to speak, all attendees are encouraged to talk about how they are feeling, or to borrow one of Ruby’s expressions, ‘explain what the weather conditions are like in your head’.

Attendees usually speak for a few minutes to ensure everyone that would like to have the opportunity to speak. You can of course speak more than once, don’t worry about these timings, the facilitator is there to make sure all who want to speak can and that there is room for all voices to be heard. Speaking is optional. If you would just like to listen, that is perfectly OK. In all meetings, and in between people speaking, we expect some silences and those are normal.

The Facilitator’s role is to ensure everyone that would like to speak gets a chance to, that the topics of conversation are appropriate for the space and that attendees are both present and respectful of the space and one another. After the closing mindfulness exercise and the end of the meeting, we recommend attendees take a few minutes to reflect and decompress before returning to their usual routine.

Meetings are held at 130A Southdown Road, Harpenden, AL5 1PU.

Parking is available in the co-op car park. Entrance is via main doors and up the stairs on Southdown Rd or via the rear doors from the car park where there is lift access.

There is wheelchair accessibility at this location.

There is a policy in place regarding the building used for our meetings and the CCTV that is in place there. You can read more about it here View the Policy on CCTV