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Writing for Life: A student’s perspective

The RLF’s Writing for Life programme sees writers share their expertise, skills and experience with community and workplace groups across the country. Among the organisations with whom we work closely are a number of Recovery & Wellbeing Colleges, run by local NHS Trusts.

Earlier this year Paul, now a Peer Tutor at the Calderdale and Kirklees Recovery & Wellbeing College led by South West Yorkshire Partnership Trust, attended one of our Writing for Life workshops. Here, he shares his thoughts on the experience:

“When I enrolled at Calderdale and Kirklees Recovery & Wellbeing College in 2025, I was looking for support following an ADHD diagnosis. I had spent years struggling with anxiety, depression and a sense that I had somehow fallen off the path I expected my life to take. Having left regular employment in 2018, I struggled with how often the goal of support seemed to be getting me back to work. I was just looking for ways to move forward and feel a sense of worth. 

One of the first courses I attended was Writing for Self-Expression, jointly delivered by the College and the Royal Literary Fund’s Writing for Life programme. Each week we read poetry and used it as a starting point for our own writing. I joined the first session feeling unsure of myself and without much confidence in my long-atrophied ability to write creatively. The course offered something I hadn’t realised how much I needed: permission to be a beginner again, to write without it having to be perfect. 

Sometimes the poems I wrote were a way of making sense of things that felt confusing or difficult to explain. Other times I wrote something playful or silly, like the one about how much I like spreadsheets. The writing helped me rediscover a voice I thought I’d lost. 

A couple of months later, I stood in front of a room full of people at the Recovery College’s 10th Anniversary celebration and read one of the poems I wrote, to a huge round of applause. Looking back, that moment marked the return of a significant amount of confidence and self-belief. 

The experience stayed with me, and two months later I was a volunteer facilitator at the College. Earlier this year I had the chance to co-facilitate a Reading Round group, another course delivered with the RLF. Each week we explored a poem and a short story together, discussing style and themes, and discovering connections between the pieces. Helping deliver the course was an absolute pleasure, and Heidi, the lead facilitator from the RLF, was a wonderful and supportive person to work with.  

In July this year I took another massive step forward: I started work as a Recovery Coach with the College. A writing course at the start of my recovery journey became a small but incredibly important step on the path from learner, to volunteer, to Recovery Coach. The RLF courses were instrumental inhelping me find a sense of hope and possibility for the future.”

Want to know more about our Writing for Life programmes?

The RLF’s professional writers are trained to deliver reading and writing workshops which aim to improve wellbeing, create opportunity and make a positive change in people’s lives. Our partners include NHS groups, trade unions and voluntary and community sector organisations. Find out more here.

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