Marking ‘Mental Health Awareness Week’ at St Mary’s

This week marks Mental Health Awareness Week and at St Mary’s we have been hosting a range of wellbeing activities across the school to shine a spotlight on the importance of looking after our mental health.

Throughout the school an abundance of extra-curricular activities took place, each designed to help our students focus on practising and exploring different techniques to support their mental health. Everyday we sent out ‘St Mary’s suggestions’ for students to consider, including a motivational song to listen to, an inspirational quote to think about, an emotional book to read or an easy watching TV show to take time out with.

Wellbeing kits were available for collection, as well as the opportunity for students to purchase additional items at our wellbeing item sale, including fidget keyrings, bubbles, bath bombs, lip balms and more! All proceeds from the sales will go to the youth mental health charity, Charlie Waller Trust.

Every lunchtime, pupils had the chance take part in a range of different wellbeing activities across the school such as Lego, mindful colouring and pom pom making. Special QR codes were displayed throughout the school for students to access each day’s WordCloud. This initaitive enabled students to share their viewpoints on a range of inspiring themes. The results could then be viewed collectively the next day.

Students were introduced to the "Ta-da" list, which is the opposite of a ‘To Do’ list and allows you to note down the things you have already done that make you feel proud. ‘The Happy Kitchen: Boost Mood with Food’ was a fun workshop for students to take part in, which gave them the chance to get creative in the kitchen.

Fitting with this year’s theme of ‘Loneliness’, students also enjoyed viewing and colouring in a special book created from discussions with young people across the country about the things that help them combat feelings of isolation. The organisers wanted to produce something that encapsulated all of these ideas to then share with others. The book itself took students on a journey across the country and introduced them to local folklore tales and stories from each of the areas. Pupils also took part in pen pal activity: ‘Post Pals’, where they used the ‘Pal Finder’ and letter writing guides to help them devise letters to seriously ill children and their siblings.

Mental Health Awareness Week has been running for 21 years and is hosted by the Mental Health Foundation. The charity works to prevent mental health problems by helping people understand, protect, and sustain their mental health. Its vision is for a world with good mental health for all.

To find out more about Mental Health Awareness Week, which also includes a student guide to loneliness, please visit this link.