Mental Health Awareness Week
Every year starting on the second Monday of May.
Raising awareness on the importance of mental health and overcoming potential issues together.
About the event
Mental Health Awareness Week was set up by the Mental Health Foundation in 2001. It is an annual event designed to raise awareness of mental health issues and highlight the support required for achieving good mental health. Every year there is a specific theme which highlight things like kindness, loneliness and body image.
How to approach it
This is a great opportunity to introduce and reinforce student’s knowledge of what ‘mental health’ is and what good or bad mental health looks like. For younger key stages start by encouraging students to list emotions - which one’s are pleasant and which ones are not? Suggest to students that a bad mental health is when we feel unpleasant for a significant portion of the time and better mental health is the opposite. Older key stages will almost certainly have heard of mental health, discuss together what the term means to them and to you.
Next, ask students to think about ways in which we might be able to tell if others have good mental health or bad mental health. Ask them, how can we help ourselves to have a good mental health, how can we help others?
Conversation starter
We all feel sad or overwhelmed from time to time, but if we are open and honest about it others can help us. How can you tell if someone is having trouble with their mental health? What are some good ways to help?
