World Mental Health Day

This is scheduled for Friday 9th October this year.

I am sitting here pondering what I might do to acknowledge the event in a meaningful way. It’s entirely un-me, of course, to do anything at all on these occasions, but suddenly I find myself drawn to contributing my tiny bit to improving things.

But what to do?

Perhaps I could invite parents from the village to come and talk at a sort of “tea and children’s mental health” session. Or maybe invite people to come and learn the basics of EFT so they can use it for themselves and teach their children this effective self-help therapy. Possibly even do a special offer of five sessions for the price of three  for parents who wish to access help for their child (or does that liken our services to that of a supermarket chain?).

Of course, as soon as I write these suggestions down, I realise it is but a drop in the ocean of human need. Two of them might also open up issues of risk, which would need addressing during the planning stage.

This idea of risk tied to making an effective contribution to mental health immediately rang a connection in my head to BACP’s Divisional conference for CCYP, which takes Risk as its theme this year. And here I am wondering if the risk of taking action on World Mental Health Day is just too risky to be worth it. Ha! The conference theme hadn’t seemed terribly interesting till just now…

So I shall book to be at the CCYP conferences in November and February (you can access details from here) and I shall proceed with planning my action for Friday 9th October. Of course, we run into an instant set-back – that’s the day of BACP’s annual conference, so I will have to make my little contribution on an earlier day. How about calling it “Pre-empting world mental health – come and make sure you’re OK by the day itself”??

I’ll let you know what happens.

I just found a newly published fabulous book on PTSD in children and young people. Have a look at More off the Press, tabbed at the top of this page. Or find it here. A must-have book.