Events for World Mental Health Day

Date published: 10 October 2019


Oldham Council and Oldham Cares will host an event for World Mental Health Day 2019 today (Thursday 10th).

Both have worked with several local organisations including TOG Mind, Positive Steps and Pennine Care to organise an awareness raising event in the town centre, which aims to help residents develop ways to cope with life’s daily stresses. 

The event will take place outside Positive Cycles, Tommyfield Market, in the town centre, from 11am to 3pm on Thursday 10 October.

There will be a range of resources to help you improve your mental wellbeing or find support for any mental health problems you might be experiencing.

There will also be professionals from all three of the local organisations as well as Action Together, ABL Health and the Samaritans.

Residents can find out more about the latest resources from Public Health England and Every Mind Matters, which aims to support everyone to feel more confident in taking action to look after their mental health and wellbeing by promoting a range of self-care actions.

For those looking to check their health, Positive Steps will be offering free Health Checks for those aged 40 and over.

Create your own smoothie using the ‘Smoothie Bike’ but if that’s not for you, don’t worry, just have a chat, a brew and find out more about some of the many opportunities available to improve your mental wellbeing.

The two organisations are also encouraging everyone to wear yellow to show support and help reduce the stigma around mental health and wellbeing – show us your pictures on social media by using #helloyellow and help spread the word.

The theme of World Mental Health Day this year, “40 seconds of action”, focuses around suicide prevention – which also ties in with the recently launched Greater Manchester campaign, ‘Shining a Light on Suicide’.

Councillor Marie Bashforth, Deputy Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care, said:

“According to the World Health Organisation, close to 800,000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds.

There are also indications that for each adult who died by suicide there may have been more than 20 others attempting suicide.

“These numbers are just too high and as a local authority, we have a key role to play in improving the mental health of everyone in our community and to help create thriving communities.

“Mental health is a top priority for us and we’re committed to working with partners including Oldham Cares to do everything we can to improve the lives of our residents.

 “We also offer our staff a Fit for Oldham programme which offers events and support to help anyone experiencing low mental wellbeing or mental health problems.

“I urge people to attend this event as it will give people the chance to talk to someone about any symptoms they may be experiencing and start a healthy dialogue about mental health.”

“Feeling low could be helped by simply starting a conversation with someone about how you’re feeling.”

In 2018/19, as a commitment to improving mental health, we made sure all schools and colleges in Oldham have a senior mental health lead to have a strategic role, responsible for implementing a whole school/college approach to mental health across their setting rather than an individual member of staff with who is the ‘go to person’ for mental health.

If you are experiencing any mental health problems, you’re not alone, talk to someone. There are a range of services in Oldham to support you including TOG Mind, Positive Steps, Andy’s Man Club and Healthy Minds and Healthy Young Minds.

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts and need to talk to someone immediately, the Samaritans are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on 116 123.

 


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