Today marks the first day of Mental Health Awareness Week 2022 – hosted by the Mental Health Foundation.
The Mental Health Foundation started Mental Health Awareness Week 21 years ago and continue to set the theme, organise and host the week. It’s an opportunity for the whole of the UK to focus on achieving good mental health and has grown to become one of the biggest awareness weeks across the UK and globally.
This years theme is Loneliness, with the aim of raising awareness of the impact of loneliness on people’s mental wellbeing and the practical steps they can take to address it. Loneliness is affecting more and more of people in the UK and has had a huge impact on their physical and mental health during the pandemic.
To acknowledge the week, Pennine are undertaking 2 events. Firstly, we are giving every member of staff an extra 15 minutes in their lunch break to participate in in Mindfulness activities – whether that be group walks, exercise, or just some personal reflection.
Secondly, all team members are invited to a 30-minute presentation called “The Big Talk”, which will be based on Mental Health. This is a hugely important session for us as this represents the very start of a movement to remove the stigma and normalise opening up on Mental Health as a business and a workforce.
Lastly, we want to give something back to the local community, so have produced 3 White Papers, which you can download below, which you can add your own branding and circulate to staff. These White Papers contain handy tips and advice on how to improve mental health, and we hope you enjoy them.
To conclude, we echo the thoughts of the Mental Health Foundation: “Our connection to other people and our community is fundamental to protecting our mental health and we need to find better ways of tackling the epidemic of loneliness. We can all play a part in this.”
