Thriving Survivors

12/10/2026

Sometimes resetting is talked about as though it needs to be dramatic: a full day off, a retreat, a complete change of routine.

In reality, it is often much smaller than that.

A reset might simply be pausing for a moment, reducing the noise around you, doing one manageable task or returning to something that helps you feel a little more grounded.

It will look different for everyone, and it will not always “fix” how you are feeling. But small steps can still make a difference.

We have shared a few gentle ideas in this carousel, and we would love to know what helps you reset when life feels a bit too much.

10/10/2026

Today is World Mental Health Day, and this year’s theme feels particularly relevant to us at Thriving Survivors: **Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change.**

There is an important difference between listening to someone’s story and allowing their experience to influence what happens next. Too often, people with lived experience are invited to share their story or contribute to a consultation, while the real decisions are still made elsewhere.

People with lived experience bring knowledge that cannot be gained through professional training or research alone. They understand what it feels like to navigate services, where barriers appear, what support feels helpful and where systems can unintentionally cause further harm.

This sits at the heart of Thriving Survivors. Lived experience has helped shape who we are, how our services have developed and the way we think about trauma, recovery and support.

WHO figures show there is still work to do. Only 45% of responding countries reported ongoing collaboration with people with lived experience and advocacy groups in the planning, delivery or monitoring of mental health services. Just 37% involved people with lived experience in mental health training for primary healthcare workers.

Meaningful involvement is more than consultation. Consultation asks, “What do you think?” Co-production asks, “How do we build this together?”

Survivors should not only be invited into conversations once the important decisions have been made. Their expertise should be valued from the beginning, through design, delivery and evaluation.

This World Mental Health Day, perhaps the question is not simply whether we listen to lived experience, but where lived experience actually has power.

Real change comes when people are not simply heard, but trusted, included and given meaningful influence.

**Nothing about us without us.**



Image credit: Getty Images

09/10/2026

Being friendly is not the same as being trauma-informed. Neither is having a wellbeing policy, using softer language or telling staff to be compassionate.

Trauma-informed practice asks us to look much more closely at the experience someone is having within our organisation.

- Do they feel safe?
- Have they been given meaningful choices?
- Do they understand what is going to happen next?
- Could our systems or processes unintentionally remove control from someone who may already have experienced control being taken away from them?

It also asks us to reconsider behaviour. Someone who appears disengaged, difficult, angry or unwilling to cooperate may be responding to an environment or situation through the lens of previous trauma.

This does not mean lowering standards, avoiding boundaries or never having difficult conversations. It means understanding that how we deliver a service can be just as important as the service itself.

That applies far beyond specialist trauma organisations. It matters in healthcare, education, justice, workplaces, charities and community services, which is why Thriving Survivors also works with organisations through training and consultation.

Supporting survivors cannot sit solely with trauma services. Creating safer systems is something all of us can contribute to.

08/10/2026

Behind every knife crime statistic is a family whose life has been changed forever.

Victim Support Scotland has released a powerful video featuring three people who have lost loved ones to knife crime, sharing their experiences and calling for meaningful change in how knife crime is tackled in Scotland.

Ashleigh Mullen lost her brother Peter in 2023, Neil McCrimmon lost his son Kory in 2024 and Lisa Petrie lost her son John in 2025. Through their stories, they share the devastating impact of losing someone to violence and the changes they believe could help prevent other families from experiencing the same loss.

The video comes as the Knife Angel sculpture, created using more than 100,000 blades seized by police, leaves Edinburgh. It is a powerful reminder of the lives affected by knife crime, but these families are asking for more than awareness. Victim Support Scotland is calling for a comprehensive review of knife crime involving young people, stronger consideration of knife sales and carrying regulations, and national provision of bleed kits.

At Thriving Survivors, we understand the importance of recognising that trauma does not end when an incident is over. The impact can continue through families, relationships and communities for years afterwards. Supporting those affected is essential, but so is listening to their experiences and allowing that knowledge to influence how we prevent future harm.

We believe that lived experience should play a central role in shaping policies and services. The voices of families who have experienced unimaginable loss deserve to be heard, respected and included in the decisions that affect others.

We encourage you to take a few minutes to watch this important video from Victim Support Scotland and listen to the families sharing their stories.

Their experiences deserve more than our attention. They deserve action.

https://youtu.be/MNMLKV6dTUE?si=TjZdpZw6Ji3IjKmN

Three people who have lost a family member to knife crime have shar...

07/10/2026

Sometimes the most powerful thing someone can hear is: “I understand.”

Mentoring at Thriving Survivors is built around connection. Our mentors have lived experience and provide one-to-one support centred around the survivor's own growth and development. It is about building a relationship over time, working towards personal goals, developing confidence and supporting someone to move forward at their own pace.

Lived experience does not mean assuming everyone has had the same journey. Every survivor is different. What it can offer, though, is a different kind of understanding and a relationship where someone may feel less alone in what they are experiencing.

For somebody who has spent a long time feeling misunderstood, that connection can matter enormously.

Find out more about Mentoring and our other services: www.thrivingsurvivors.co.uk/our-services

05/10/2026

A message on its own might not appear significant. Neither might someone unexpectedly appearing somewhere, viewing every social media post or opening another account after being blocked.

But when these behaviours are looked at together, they can tell a very different story.

Recent Crown Prosecution Service figures showed that 8,561 stalking offences were charged between April 2025 and March 2026, more than double the number recorded five years earlier. One of the ongoing challenges around stalking is recognising behaviour as a pattern rather than treating each incident in isolation.

That same idea is important when we think about trauma. Repeated harassment can gradually change the way someone lives. They may alter where they go, who they see, what they share online, how they travel and how safe they feel in their own home.

The impact is not limited to each individual incident. It can change someone's relationship with the world around them.

Sometimes understanding trauma means looking beyond the incident in front of us and asking what has been happening over time.

04/10/2026

We have a very important member of the Thriving Survivors team who is currently going by… well, absolutely nothing publicly!

Our bear already has a name, but we are keeping it secret. For just £2, you can choose the name you think we have given them. If you choose correctly, you get to take the Thriving Survivors bear home with you. Every entry also raises funds to support the work we do with survivors and families affected by trauma.

There are plenty of names to choose from, but once a name has been taken, it is gone. So the question is, can you work out what we called our bear?

🧸 Pick your name for £2
🧸 Help raise funds for Thriving Survivors
🧸 Guess correctly and the bear is yours

Have a look at the names still available and make your guess: https://www.thrivingsurvivors.co.uk/event-details/name-the-thriving-survivors-bear

02/10/2026

Lived experience should not be the interesting story at the end of a conference, or the quote that gets added to a report to make it feel more human. If we genuinely want services to work for survivors, lived experience has to help shape those services from the beginning.

This has always been an important part of how Thriving Survivors works. Our mentoring model recognises that professional qualifications matter enormously, but there is also real value in sitting with someone who understands aspects of the journey because they have lived through something themselves.

That does not mean every survivor has the same experience, and it does not mean lived experience replaces professional expertise. Both bring something different and both have value.

The real challenge for organisations is not simply asking, "How do we include survivor voices?" It is asking when those voices are being heard. Are survivors involved while decisions are still being shaped, or are they being asked for an opinion once everything has already been decided?

There is a significant difference between consultation and genuine involvement.

30/09/2026

Who would you put around your Thriving Fiesta table? Your team, your clients, a group of friends, or perhaps the people you know will be the first ones onto the dancefloor?

This year marks ten years of Thriving Survivors, and when we think about what has happened over that decade it is difficult to sum it up in a few words.

There have been thousands of conversations, survivors who trusted us with their experiences, people who went on to become mentors, families who found support and professionals who changed the way they work. There have been new services, new partnerships, research projects and plenty of moments where we have challenged the way trauma is understood and responded to.

There is still a huge amount of work to do, and we know that. But it is also important to stop occasionally and recognise how far we have come.

That is really what the Thriving Fiesta is about. It is not simply celebrating ten years as an organisation. It is recognising the people, courage, relationships and change that have made those ten years possible.

And, because we are having a celebration, there will also be food, music, entertainment and hopefully a very busy dancefloor.

Join us on Thursday 8 October at Arta in Glasgow.

🎟️ Tickets are £60 per person or £600 for a table of ten.

28/09/2026

"Just block them." "Come off social media." "Change your account."

Why do so many of the suggested solutions to online abuse still focus on changing the behaviour of the person experiencing it?

New research from Refuge and the End Violence Against Women Coalition has put online violence against women back into the spotlight, with almost half of women aged 16 to 24 surveyed saying they had experienced violence online. The behaviours reported included stalking, harassment, monitoring, controlling behaviour, image-based abuse and the sharing of personal information.

This matters because abuse does not somehow become less harmful because it takes place through a screen. Fear is still real. Hypervigilance is still real. Feeling unsafe in your own home or changing your daily routine because somebody is monitoring you is still real.

Our lives increasingly move between online and offline spaces, and trauma does not separate those worlds as neatly as our systems sometimes do.

As technology changes the ways in which harm can be perpetrated, the conversations we have about trauma, safety and survivor support need to keep changing too.