This year the theme for Mental Health Awareness Week has been Loneliness. The pandemic has given rise increased loneliness and isolation for some people, with less access to friends and family. Our workplaces are also changing. People are adapting to home and hybrid working and although we need to embrace this change we still need meaningful connections with our colleagues.
At Coppice Valley we are so grateful to be able to reconnect with our community now that Covid restrictions have been lifted. For the first time in two years, we held a family breakfast before school last week. It was so heart-warming to see the school hall filled with families and staff enjoying a healthy breakfast together. Although we are still responsible and cautious when it comes to living with Covid, it’s so important that we get back to community events. They really do lift the spirits and boost everyone’s mental health.
Over the coming summer term, we will be running more community events to stay connected. For the Queen’s Jubilee we are having a garden party with parents, grandparents and all the family invited to join us for a picnic in a beautiful school gardens. We’ll be having garden games and strawberries and cream to celebrate the occasion.
Mental Health UK, who founded Mental Health Awareness Week, are asking us all to take action.
1. Raise awareness
Help people to understand links between loneliness and poor mental health, and actively check in on those around you at work and in your communities
2. Invite conversations
Use the Mental Health UK advice, information, and conversation starters to help navigate chats about mental health
3. Volunteer your time
Give back some of your time. What local services and charities could you support?
4. Ask others to act
Raise these issues within your community and encourage more people to act.
In our school community, we are supporting the Mental Health UK’s Let’s Connect campaign by providing safe and welcoming spaces and events for our families to get together and we hope, if things continue to improve, that our pupils will be allowed to volunteer their time again to our local nursing home and nurseries. Going to read and chat with the nursing home residents and nursery children was a highlight of their week and taught our pupils so much about giving back to their community.
*Sponsored Blog by Coppice Valley Primary School
