We brought customers, colleagues and partners together through a range of community events for the recent Mental Health Awareness Week (12-18 May).
The theme for the national campaign was to celebrate the power of communities, so colleagues put on their walking shoes during lunch breaks for a series of wellbeing walks and voluntary group Happy@Home put on a ‘tea and talk’ morning for Futures customers living at Warwick Court, Daventry – where 99-year-old Evelyn joined.
Evelyn said: “I always look forward to the volunteers coming. It brings the most amount of people in this building together. I like the company, and I like the girls who help us - we get waited on hand and foot! And we all always say, ‘no washing up!’ Although I do help them put the pots away after.”
Happy@Home usually run a fortnightly breakfast club for Futures customers, but to support the campaign the charity organised a seated exercise session and gave each customer a handmade card with inspiring words on and a green ribbon to wear.
Michaella Sutton, Happy@Home Project Worker said: “Events like this are so important for elderly people so they can feel included and know they matter. I think a lot of elderly people feel invisible, but it just takes one person or a small charity like us to start these things.
“Initially, we didn’t have a lot of people attending but now it’s grown, and we have quite a regular group who’ve formed friendships away from the breakfast club. The volunteers and I try to be as friendly and welcoming as possible but for many elderly people it takes a lot of guts and bravery to walk into a room like this with lots of people and established friendships. So people even bring their families along to make them feel a little bit safer and now we have a mix of generations here!”
In Derbyshire, Futures and Live Life Better Derbyshire put on health and wellbeing drop-ins for the local community, to not only give advice on mental health, but also on stopping smoking and weight management as well as free blood pressure checks. For those who couldn’t make an event in person, we also hosted an online group for customers to chat about how they feel about their community. The group ran on our My Voice platform - a friendly space where you can find out more about Futures, have a say in what we’re doing and make things happen – all while receiving points and rewards as a thank you for participating.
