Healthy Holidays
IOU Creative Retreat
Healthy Holidays at the IOU Hebden Bridge Hostel
Over July & August, the IOU Hebden Bridge Hostel hosted 27 children on two creative retreats as part of the Healthy Holidays Calderdale holiday activity scheme
The two retreats, including an overnight stay, were an opportunity for children to experience independence and encourage self confidence away from home.
The programme was developed working with 6 practitioners and included forest school in the IOU Hostel woods, local walks, yoga, leaf printing, foraging and taking turns cooking healthy meals for the rest of the group supervised by hostel staff. In the evenings the children relaxed watching wild animal footage filmed overnight around the Hostel woods and took part in interactive storytelling.
Impact
The experience for the children and staff was overwhelming. Children’s confidence grew from being extremely low on arrival to 100% confident on departing. Yoga, whittling wood, and building fires were favourite activities with some not wanting to leave the yoga class! 100% of the children said that their least favourite activity was ’nothing’!.

Joanne Wain IOU’s Executive Director said, “ The IOU Creative Retreat at the Hostel was an incredible success and we felt privileged to introduce young people to the world of IOU.”
Thanks to Healthy Holidays Calderdale, Lisa Bailey, Julie West, Live Wild, Ursula, Carla Daly, and all of the IOU and Hostel team that made this such a special event.