The theme for this year’s Mental Health Month is 'We all have a role to play'
This month encourages all of us to think about our mental health and wellbeing, regardless of whether we may have a lived experience of mental illness or not. It also gives us the opportunity to understand the importance of good mental health in our everyday lives and encourages help seeking behaviours when needed.
Taking responsibility for your mental health, and understanding that it’s a key to success in your personal and professional life, is the most important action you can take.
Here are five Be You Fact Sheets to use as a starting point to support your mental health, and share with your learning community.
- Staff Wellbeing - While you’re putting your energy into creating a positive mental health environment for children and young people, it’s also important to focus on the wellbeing of yourself and your colleagues.
- Stress Management - Our capacity to navigate stress will be different at various points in time. It’s important to understand what puts us at risk of stress and how we can protect ourselves from getting overwhelmed by it.
- Nutrition and mental health - Healthy eating helps children and young people cope more effectively with stress, better manage their emotions and get a good sleep – all of which assist learning.
- Physical activity and mental health - Services and schools provide many opportunities for children and young people to join in physical activity, through both structured activities like formal classes or team sports and spontaneous play. Regular physical activity is great for children and young people’s health development and helps prevent and relieve mental health issues.
- Mindfulness - Mindfulness is about learning to make a conscious and discerning choice where our attention lies, rather than allowing it to be dominated by concerns which take us away from experiencing the present moment. See how practising mindfulness can help to promote positive wellbeing for you and your learning community.