World Mental Health Day 2022 is all about raising awareness of mental health issues across the world, and finding ways to enhance mental health support.

You can find out further details via the World Health Organisation’s website. Each and every day, across our family of schools, we continually focus on mental health and wellbeing and how to look after each other through difficult times. The pandemic continues to take its toll on our ability to reconnect, and today gives us a focused opportunity to protect and improve mental health.

We need to remove the stigma from mental health and strive to find ways to support each other and provide help to those who need it. If you had a broken bone, you would go to A&E for support and treatment. Mental health also needs support and it is our duty to ensure people don't feel embarrassed or unable to ask for the support they need. We can all play a part in helping others if we see signs of them struggling and also we should ask for help if we need it ourselves. Remember, it is ok not to be ok.

Every year our family of schools takes part in the Great Get Together campaign that takes place in both summer and winter. Its purpose is to tackle loneliness and to bring people together. We also focus on connection and wellbeing each and every day. We asked some of our staff and young people how they look after their own wellbeing and here is a summary of their top ten tips:

1. Call or visit a friend to talk
2. Go for a walk
3. Read a book
4. Listen to music
5. Play a team sport (football was the most popular answer!)
6. Go for a bike ride
7. Paint or draw
8. Visit an elderly relative
9. Make (or ask someone to make) their favourite meal
10. Do something kind for someone else

Maybe this week all of us could think about number 10 and do something kind to help a friend, a neighbour, a colleague or a school friend. After all, no act of kindness can ever be underestimated.