Mental Health Awareness Week – 15^th to 21^st May 2023

Anxiety is a normal emotion in us all, but sometimes it can get out of control and become a mental health problem.

Lots of things can lead to feelings of anxiety, including exam pressures, relationships, starting a new job (or losing one) or other big life events. We can also get anxious when it comes to things to do with money and not being able to meet our basic needs, like heating our home or buying food.

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems we can face. In a recent mental health survey we carried out around stress, anxiety and hopelessness over personal finances, a quarter of adults said they felt so anxious that it stopped them from doing the things they want to do some or all of the time. Six in ten adults feel this way, at least some of the time. On a positive note, anxiety can be made easier to manage.

Focusing on anxiety for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week will increase people’s awareness and understanding of anxiety by providing information on the things that can help prevent it from becoming a problem. At the same time, we will keep up the pressure to demand change – making sure that improving mental health is a key priority for the government and society as a whole.

Children’s Mental Health Awareness week – 6^th – 12^th February 2023

The week of the 6th-12th February is Children’s Mental Health Awareness week 2023. The theme of this year’s Children’s Mental Health Week is ”Lets Connect”.

Let’s Connect is about making meaningful connections for all, during Children’s Mental Health Week – and beyond. Human beings thrive in communities, and this connection is vital for our wellbeing, and our survival. When we have healthy connections – to family, friends and others – this can support our mental health and our sense of wellbeing. And when our need for rewarding social connections is not met, we can sometimes feel isolated and lonely – which can have a negative impact on our mental health.  For Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, we’re encouraging people to connect with others in healthy, rewarding, and meaningful ways. Watch the video below to learn more about the theme.

Children’s Mental Health Week 2022

The theme of Children’s Mental Health Week 2022 was Growing Together, and we explored the different ways that we can grow, and help others to do so too. We shared a wellbeing challenge with our students to see which tutor group could tick off the most activities during the week. We hosted various wellbeing challenges ‘Who could drink 2 litres of water’, ‘Make the effort to go for a walk’, ‘Go to bed earlier’

Worlds Mental Health Day – #HelloYellow

To mark #WorldMentalHealthDay and #HelloYellow, Staff wore yellow in and around the academy and students had assemblies lead by our Mental Health Support Team. There were chances for students (and staff) to use the #HelloYellow photo booth during their lunchtime where they could make small donations to ‘Young Minds’ if they wished. Saying #HelloYellow this World Mental Health Day is a little thing that we did to make a BIG difference to young people’s mental health.