It’s Mental Health Awareness Week from Monday 8th May to Sunday 15th May!
Washington Mind are getting involved in the annual campaign of Mental Health Awareness Week that is promoted by the Mental Health Foundation.
They are hoping to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing, specifically what you can do to look after yourself and where to go for support if you or someone you care about needs it.
Mental health problems affect one in four of us, so even though its common we still struggle to talk about it and don’t know where to go for help. Do you know anyone who would struggle with a broken leg for a few months before asking for help? And yet we often hear of people suffering in silence with a mental health issue for a long time before they get the right help. Often they are feeling much worse by the time they get support.
People tell us that not being able to talk about it can be the hardest thing about the illness. We want to change this for those 1 in 4 people and get  people talking about mental health, so that they can support as soon as they need it and this can help reduce the stigma out of something that affects us all.
What is Happening?
This year the Mental Health Foundation and Washington Mind are trying to raise awareness about metal health through social media and have started Thunderclap campaigns. You may be wondering what Thunderclap is…it is a service that enables people to pledge a tweet or Facebook post in support of a campaign and these posts will all be sent at the same time, meaning they can achieve the maximum effect. It’s like an online Flashmob, which will help raise awareness of mental health!
We want you to encourage your friends, family and work colleagues to pledge to do something in the lead up to mental health awareness week, you could:
- Join the Mental Health Foundation thunderclap by clicking here, and join the Washington Mind Thunderclap by clicking here.
- Start a conversation about mental health
- Visit welbeinginfo.org and find out what support we have locally
Whatever you do tell us about it by posting on Facebook with #MHAW17 and #WashingtonMind and we look forward to seeing what people get up to!
