Richmond Fellowship marks World Mental Health Day
National mental health charity Richmond Fellowship galvanised its services around the country to challenge stigma as part of World Mental Health Day.
The annual awareness event on 10 October saw the national charities’ Chorley community service team up with a local choir to stage a ‘Flash Mob Choir’ in the town centre involving over 100 people.
Team leader Jessica Fish said:
“Once the first song had finished and the entire choir were in position we then recruited members of the public to sing with us by handing out song books. We were then able to talk with people about our service and raise awareness of World Mental Health Day.”
Elsewhere services in Leicestershire engaged with rail commuters to hold short conversations about mental health. The pop up stand at the station gave information about Samaritans and encouraged people to open up about mental health.
In Middlesbrough local services joined 36 other providers to run a range of activities throughout the day such as yoga, Zumba and mental health first aid taster sessions.
Richmond Fellowship’s Kirklees-based services came together to raise awareness in Huddersfield town centre. Setting up a stall in the market, they put on an art workshop and a guitar demonstration whilst talking with members of the public about World Mental Health Day and services available locally.
In Liverpool, services took part in a cross organisational World Mental Health Day event to raise awareness. Staff and people using community and supported housing services in the city came together to run a stand.
Liz North, community links worker for Our Time, said:
“We had about 300 people throughout the day approach our stall to find out about our Time Bank service.
“Visitors said our stall was fun and entertaining, but also informative and helped people understand more about mental health issues as well as services provided in the city.”
Sparky’s café in Guildford hosted an open day with a selection of speakers discussing mental health and the benefits of social enterprise projects like Sparky’s. The open day attracted many new visitors to the café and helped raise the profile of Sparky’s in Guildford.
Elsewhere services in Sudbury was joined by the local Mayor Sue Ayres and South Suffolk MP James Cartlidge to champion mental health recovery, wellbeing and promote local supported housing and community support services.
