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2020

July

Looking Ahead: New WRAP Class starting Wednesday, Nov. 1!

While we can no longer serve coffee during the pandemic.

Make an appointment to return to the Iversen Center & receive a $5 coffee card! (while supplies last)

We’re Reopening!!!

Wednesday, July 22

We have new hours:

Monday through Friday 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM

** BY APPOINTMENT ONLY ** 530-879-3311

The COVID-19 pandemic has required us to make several changes to how we do things in order to keep everyone safe. There will still be many opportunities to support your wellness & recovery while you are here though – and staff are looking forward to seeing you!

We will be offering peer listening, small face-to-face support groups, and zoom groups throughout the day. As always, there is a member phone available to use.

Keep in mind that in order to protect everyone we cannot accommodate as many people at one time as we used to. Plan to join a group or two, but not to stay longer than 2 hours.

Please call us in advance at 530-879-3311 to:

Make an appointment for Peer Listening.

Make an appointment to attend a support group. (See our calendar for details).

The first 100 members to make an appointment in advance will get a FREE $5 Coffee card! (Thanks to a special donor!) All you have to do is make the appointment in advance & attend it!

PLEASE ALSO NOTE:

We will be using the back door as our entrance to allow more room and privacy for screening everyone before entering the build-ing. After screening and handwashing in the kitchen, please go to the front desk to sign in.

If you are not feeling well, have a cough or fever, please stay home!! In the event of an exposure we will have to close again to quarantine and the building to be sanitized.

Please be a few minutes early.

Staff and members will be required to wear a mask inside the building. Don’t worry, we will give you one.

Our kitchen is closed. Regretfully we can no longer serve coffee or food. You won’t be able to use the microwave or store your food in a refrigerator. Do bring your own water bottle.

We’re a phone call away.

Northern Valley Talk Line continues to provide extended

hours for phone support! 11:30am-9:30pm daily

1-855-582-5554

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Iversen Newsletter – July 2020

Changes

To Our Center

WELLNESS TOOL OF THE MONTH

Change can be hard. It’s especially difficult when everyone has been asked to make so many changes and sacrifices already. The Iversen Wellness & Recovery Center will definitely be a different place when we reopen. It’s OK to have mixed feelings about that, and we are here to provide support.

Many of our members and staff are either at an increased risk for severe Covid-19 or live with someone who is. To keep each other safe, we will be abiding by the CDC and California State recom-mendations for social distancing and wearing face masks to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

The building will be cleaned every evening. And during the day all used surfaces will be regularly sanitized. Expect to be asked to help with this (as you are able) when you leave a meeting room.

Our kitchen is closed! We are not able to serve coffee, provide snacks, or offer the use of the fridge or microwave. The kitchen will be only for washing hands and using the member phone.

As much as we love hugs, we must maintain 6 feet of distance. The chairs will be arranged 6 feet apart with tape marking where the chairs go. Please do not move the furniture.

We appreciate that these changes are huge and that the Center will be very different while the pandemic continues. Thank you for your patience and understanding while we adapt to the needed safety protocols to protect everyone’s health as much as possible.

Each month there are an assortment of holidays and observances, and Iversen Center chooses one to describe on the last page of the newsletter. The holiday chosen usually has something to do with mental health and wellness.

This month, there are a few entertaining holi-days that may help the month be happier, like Teddy Bear Picnic Day on July 10, which encourages people to grab a teddy bear and enjoy a meal outdoors. It warms my heart to think about going on a walk in the park with a teddy bear one of my kids got me, let alone sitting down outside to eat.

Two more fun holiday to observe and enjoy that promises a new adventure when staying at home when staying at home gets tedious is July 1st’s International Joke Day and July 24th’s Tell an Old Joke Day. For the Tell an Old Joke Day, I have quite a few classic Knock-Knock jokes I could tell.

July 3rd is Compliment Your Mirror Day, a great day to look in the mirror and praise the person you see. That’s right, celebrate something wonderful about yourself while seeing yourself in the mirror. It’s a powerful, wonderful thing to do for yourself!

July 27th offers an off-the-wall suggestion: It’s Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day. The house-plants might enjoy a change of scenery, and you might appreciate them more if you hug their pots in your arms and carry them a short distance. It could lead to an interesting conversation with a passerby as well.

If that idea’s too unusual, July 27th is also Take Your Pants for a Walk Day, which is quite easy to ob-serve when you take a walk while wearing pants. Walking is a great form of exercise and allows us to see the world around us. Stop and check out some flowers, and maybe you’ll spot some birds, butter-flies, or squirrels.

Finally, not only is July 4th Independence Day, it’s also Sidewalk Egg Frying Day. Take a frying pan out to a sunny patch of sidewalk in the late afternoon, and see how long it takes for an egg to fry! Other food based holidays include multiple days that celebrate various flavors of ice cream, but also French fries, blueberry muffins, chocolate and more!

Check out holidayinsights.com for inspiration.

There are many simple, free, and quick wellness tools to help us with any challenge. Keep reading

for the tool of the month!

MEMBER FACILITATORS NEEDED!

If you’ve recently done the training and want to lead a small face-to-face group at the Iversen

Center, call us at 879-3311

And let’s figure out what group is best and the best time to do it!

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Iversen Newsletter – July 2020

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Iversen Newsletter – July 2020

The Iversen Wellness & Recovery Center

Hope. Support. Respect.

The Iversen

Wellness & Recovery Center

492 Rio Lindo Avenue

Chico, CA 95926

(530) 879-3311

July 18 is World Listening Day!

Recovery oriented activities and services include:

Virtual Meetings via Zoom during the Stay-at-Home Orders

and after we re-open:

Download the Zoom app for computers & smart

phones or call 1-408-638-0968

Meeting ID: 441-359-7014

Password: 8793311

The Iversen Center is a program of Northern Valley Catholic Social Service,

and is supported by Butte County Department of Behavioral Health and

MHSA funding.

The Iversen Wellness & Recovery Center welcomes all adults, especially those living with persistent mental health challenges, where we collaborate to create a supportive community

that is peer-led and agency supported. We promote and encourage acceptance, empowerment, and growth with respect for diversity and difference.

The Iversen Wellness and Recovery Center is a community of individuals in their recovery from challenging Mental Health issues. We focus on hope, personal responsibility, education,

self-advocacy, and peer support in a stigma free environment. Together we realize our dreams.

All services are FREE and open to members of the public 18 and over.

World Listening Day was established in 2010, and each year the holiday has a specific theme tied to it. Past themes include “H20,” “Sounds Lost & Found,” and “Listen to You!”

This year’s theme is “Listening to the Ground,” which asks us to consider the sounds of the literal ground in all its surfaces, from soil to asphalt, whether we’re losing metaphorical ground, and whether we can find new ground by listening for it. So quiet down, open up your ears, and get ready to study soundscapes on World Listening Day.

One way to observe World Listening Days is to go on a solo listening walk.

Pick a route, any route. Live near a beach? Take a stroll along the ocean and listen to the waves. Or maybe you want to walk through the woods and hear what the wind sounds like going through the trees. If you don’t live near anything resembling “nature,” walk a ten block loop around your neighborhood. Take out your headphones, don’t say a word, and try to pay attention to each individual sound you hear along the way.