History

The Living Well Trust is a registered charity (1080916) operating primarily in the West of Carlisle and particularly within the Raffles and Belle Vue Housing Estate. Although the Trust was only formed in 1998, it was based upon eight years of prior voluntary work with children and families of the estate by members of the Belle Vue Church of the Nazarene, a local church in the area.

The work began with a God given vision to a member of the Church to begin a work in this area of Raffles which was suffering extreme levels of social unrest, deprivation and anti-social behaviour.

The work began slowly and for eight years it was focused upon Children's work through a club called the Loaves and Fishes. In those eight years many lessons were learned, trust was established with the families on the Estate and the way was paved for the developments to come.

In 1998, Kath Queen, who had received the original vision, and Barrie Thomas who had also felt the call of God into this work, knew that in order to develop the work they had to offer themselves full time into it, to invest themselves in the lives of the Estate. Nothing was easy in these early years but again it was a journey that had to be walked for it was all part of a training ground and a plan for the future. There were no permanent resources of any kind, no building to work from, limited funding to use, minimal staff and volunteers but there was always an overriding desire to fulfil God's calling in the work.

In 2000 the former Co-operative Food store in the heart of the Estate was purchased for a nominal sum and was developed into a Family Centre, which now offers health, family support and community activities to the West of Carlisle.

Also in the year 2000, Barrie Thomas was appointed as the minister to the area in addition to his work in the Trust and the foundations for a church plant began which became an organised church in the Church of the Nazarene in January 2004 with the name Raffles Community Church.

Other programmes began to develop when Graham Slater joined the team in 2000 as Youth Worker from which developed the Bus work, which is now well recognised for its influence with young people. Graham's wife, Ruth, joined the team in 2001 to begin an Advisory service to teenagers but which quickly developed into the Alternative Education department.

Although some of the original staff are no longer with us, the staff compliment has now risen to seventeen in 2008 and is set to increase further as funding permits.

In 2005 a book profiling the work of the Trust was published called Compassion and Community detailing the seventeen year history of the work from the receiving of the original vision to 2005.