Celebrating Kindness for Mental Health Awareness Week

Each May, the Mental Health Foundation runs Mental Health Awareness Week – a week when mental health organisations and members of the public come together to shed a light on the importance of looking after your mental health.

This year, the theme is “Kindness” – celebrating the thousands of acts of kindness that are so important to our mental health as well as starting a discussion on the kind of society we want to shape as we emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. You can find out more about why they chose this theme on the Mental Health Foundation’s blog.

We’d love you to involve you in our celebration of kindness! You can share our Facebook posts and tweets and using the hashtag #KindnessMatters.

This is what we’re planning to do:

• use ‘kindness and self-kindness’ as a conversation starter on our Peer Support Groups that week to get people to think about how we can make our society kinder going forward.
• share messages of hope and kindness quotes on social media to spread awareness (and a bit of love!). If you’d like to send us yours, email Connie, our Communications Lead at connie@maryfrancestrust.org.uk
• create a video montage with as many of you (and us) as possible to talk about kindness! If you’d like to take part, all you need to do is send us a video clip from your smartphone, shot in landscape mode, of about 15-20 seconds max of you talking about one of the following topics (not all of them!): acts of kindness you’ve received or performed during lockdown and how that made you feel; acts of kindness towards yourself; why kindness matters to your mental health; and/or how we can make the world a kinder place. If you’re too camera-shy you can send us your message in writing and we’ll add it as a slide on the video.
• Send it to Connie, our Communications Lead, at connie@maryfrancestrust.org.uk by Wednesday 13 May 2020 at the latest so we have time to put the video together.
• We’d also welcome a blog from anyone who would like to write about kindness and mental health or how to make our world a kinder place. Contact Connie ASAP if interested.

Thank you in advance for your support (and kindness)!

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