Mental Health Awareness Week
9-15 May 2022
#Ivebeenthere
Mental Health Awareness Week is a national annual event, providing an opportunity for the UK to openly discuss and raise awareness of mental health. The Mental Health Foundation started the event 21 years ago and each year the Foundation continues to set the theme, organise, and host the week.
This year’s theme is loneliness, more so than ever we’ve missed talking to our families or friends face to face, we’ve all longed to spend time with people that make us feel safe, we’ve all longed for that freedom to do what we wanted to do. As we emerge from the pandemic, that isolation we all felt is something that can have a huge impact on our mental health.
Feeling lonely is something that all of us can experience at any point, some of the biggest challenges of experiencing loneliness can be recognising it and admitting it – both to yourself and to others.
Common signs of loneliness could be:
Spending a lot of time alone
Being unproductive
Getting stuck on the negatives
Seeming to be sick or ill frequently
Appearing overly attached to their possessions or hobbies
You can find more information about the common signs of loneliness on the Wavelength website.
Other resources and information you may find useful:
- Support and advice for ways to lift someone out of loneliness on Every Mind Matters
- Advice on how to cope with feelings of loneliness Get Your Mind Plan – Every Mind Matters – NHS
- Feeling lonely? Read our three step approach | Marmalade Trust
- Help and advice on how to cope with loneliness and improve your mental, stories of loneliness and age specific advice: Mental Health Foundation
- Take the Mind Plan quiz to get a personalised mental health action plan with practical tips to help you deal with stress, anxiety, low mood, and trouble sleeping.
Our service
Liaison and Diversion recognises the importance of being able to access the appropriate mental health support and appreciate the need for specialist knowledge. Mental Health Practitioners are appointed across all our teams, who are located both within the community and the court arena.
Our community Mental Health Practitioners aim to offer fair access to Mental Health services for those individuals who have come through police custody and signpost them to the appropriate services.
We have Mental Health Practitioners based in both Magistrates and Crown Courts across West Yorkshire. Their roles involve assessing and working with individuals in mental health acute and crisis situations. With knowledge of statutory and non-statutory services they work with partners to assess and support service users through the judicial processes advising on support for individual’s mental health providing assessments and reports when necessary.
Here’s what our teams are doing this week in honor of Mental Health Awareness week..
Mental Health Practitioners will be sharing daily resources with the teams, including blogs and videos.
Time will be spent in team meetings to encourage conversation and promote well-being, focusing on the links between loneliness and poor mental health.
Discussions about connection and communication to tackle loneliness.
Multiple health and well-being training opportunities will be available to our teams, including Negotiating and Influencing Others, Managing Mental Health in the Workplace and Making Every Contact Count.
The teams have also been tasked with getting to know a new member of the team or talking to someone they’ve never really spoken to before.
Mental Health support services you can contact
116 123
Available to call anytime 24/7
0300 123 3393
Available to call 9am-6pm on weekdays
Campaign Against Living Miserably
0800 585858
Available to call 5pm-Midnight everyday
Support for Under 25s
0808 808 4994
Available to call 4pm-11pm everyday
Online Community for Children and Young People