Chloe Angus, Corporate Wellbeing Manager at Cavendish Cancer Care, said: 

“A cancer charity and a mattress retailer might seem an odd combination however this is an innovative and exciting partnership for us. Key to our work is helping people to live a healthy lifestyle by considering things like their sleep, nutrition and mental health. We’re looking forward to working with the team and helping them in their mission to become experts in getting a good night’s sleep.”

---

What Cavendish do

For over 30 years, Cavendish Cancer Care has been supporting people who have been affected by the life-changing effects of cancer.

The organisation offers a range of services aimed at improving wellbeing and quality of life. These include:

• Support
• Counselling
• Complementary therapies
• Children’s services
• Groups and courses

Therapies

Cavendish runs a range of therapies from its centre in Sheffield. In some cases, staff will even travel to hospital wards and deliver support sessions for those who have requested it. And for those with busy lives or restricted mobility, telephone and online appointments can also be arranged.

Some of the therapies delivered by the experienced staff at Cavendish include:

• Body-based therapy
  • Massage
  • Reflexology
  • Reiki
  • Shiatsu
  • Online body-based therapy
• Acupuncture
• Aromatherapy
• Hypnotherapy, relaxation and visualisation

Young people’s services

As well as the therapies mentioned, Cavendish also runs a series of services for children and young people, including play therapies and counselling sessions.

These services are aimed at young people aged between 3 and 18 years. Those eligible could be children who have themselves received a diagnosis, or family members needing support. Staff also offer bereavement support.

The therapists at Cavendish Cancer Care’s Children & Young People’s Service are qualified in the following fields:

• Counselling
• Psychotherapy
• Art therapy
• Non-Directive play therapy
• Dyadic developmental psychotherapy

Cavendish Wellbeing

Cavendish Wellness works with businesses to focus on improving the well-being of employees. Using the expertise from within Cavendish Cancer Care, the team provide training sessions, online platforms, focus talks, mental health first-aider training and bespoke wellbeing services.

Groups, courses and online resources

The charity also offers a bank of online courses and classes via its website. Topics include:

• Sleep
• Worry, stress and anxiety
• Wellbeing
• Nutrition
• Yoga
• Grief

---

How we work together

Since working with Cavendish, we’ve had the privilege of being able to access the knowledge and expertise of the charity’s staff. This has been used on projects we feel passionately about - offering advice that helps people manage their sleep in the best way possible.

With Mattress Online and Cavendish Cancer Care both based in South Yorkshire, our employees have also benefitted from the excellent wellness sessions that Cavendish offers businesses. 

Articles in the press

Collaborating with the experts at Cavendish has led to several sleep advice articles hitting the press. Titles include:

• Timing sleep to your natural rhythms is key to a restful night - The Mirror
• Use ‘finger breathing’ techniques to calm anxiety and sleep better - British Vogue

We were also lucky enough to record Cavendish’s Wellbeing Manager, Chloe Angus, demonstrating on video a series of techniques used to help reduce anxiety. You can watch clips discussing these finger breathing techniques below:

Health and wellbeing sessions for staff

The charity has supported Mattress Online by delivering a series of well-being sessions to staff across the company. These have included talks on cancer awareness, how to recognise and deal with the effects of stress, and ways to support everyone affected by menopause.

Through our partnership with Cavendish, we have funded 183 hours of therapy for Cavendish clients and their families and have raised £7,000 in donations so far.

Steve Adams, Chief Executive Officer at Mattress Online, said:

“We’re thrilled to be working with Cavendish, from collaborating on relevant blog content connected to health to partnering with our team to deliver wellbeing sessions and contributing to fundraising.

“Knowing that our work with them is adding value to what they do for their patients and families, by funding therapy hours, makes it so worthwhile. At the outset it was clear that as organisations we have aligned values, it’s a great match.”

---