Daring to Dream®

the Emotional Health Charity

Supporting the emotional health of the 1.2 million adults in Wales living with physical illness.

Emotional health, naming and talking about our feelings constructively, is an essential to living as well as possible with illness

• Clinical care addresses our physical needs; but illness unleashes emotional responses that also hinder our enjoyment of life.
• Research demonstrates better emotional health enhances the quality of life for all of us living with physical illness, impacting on how we manage our ill health.
• Good emotional health is a recognised buffer to developing a mental illness in addition to the physical illness.

Daring to Dream makes spaces to talk and we:

1. Raise awareness of the importance of good emotional health for living well with illness. We can all give time and make space to talk for someone we know who is living with illness, so that they can talk about their feelings arising from illness.
2. Create physical ‘spaces to talk’ in hospitals. These non-clinical ‘safe spaces’ in Quiet Rooms, Relatives’ Rooms, and Dayrooms within the ward area provide essential private space for patients, their families, and staff to have important conversations during vulnerable times. Our rooms offer a ‘safe space’ to share feelings, offer comfort, and to hear and discuss clinical advice.
3. Create ‘spaces to sing’ with music to boost emotions, initiate conversations and connect people socially. Lleswyl, our flagship live-streamed annual wellbeing festival, brings Welsh artists into the homes of those unable to attend live events and is a huge ‘space to sing’. It also provides the charity itself with an important ‘space to talk’ about emotional health and living with illness.