Celebrating kindness: resources for schools for Mental Health Awareness Week (18-24 May)

The Mental Health Foundation is encouraging everyone to think about their mental wellbeing during Mental Health Awareness Week (18-24 May), with a particular focus on kindness. Why kindness? Well, MHF explains that they chose this theme because ‘kindness strengthens relationships, develops community and deepens solidarity’, and with everything going on in the world right now, what better time to shine a light on the power of kindness and the impact that it can have on our state of mind and wellbeing.

It’s not just being on the receiving end of kindness that can be good for us; helping others is also proven to be good for our own mental health and can help reduce stress and give our emotional wellbeing a positive boost.

‘Be Kind’ activities from CWRISE

With that in mind, the Mental Health in Schools team at CWRise has produced five activity sheets, one for each day of the week, with creative ways that young people can get involved and think about how they could ‘Be Kind’. You’ll find all five activity sheets below which can be shared on your websites, in your newsletters or used with pupils who are in school. We’d love to see what schools and young people in Warwickshire get up to next week, so please share your photos on Twitter and don’t forget to tag @wcc_schools and @CWRISE.

The following will download as a Word document:

Day 1 Pavement Positivity

Day 2 Bake a yummy dessert

Day 3 Learn a phrase in a new language

Day 4 Galaxy jars

Day 5 Create a masterpiece

Celebrating kindness with Virtual Kindness Cups

Place2Be is looking to celebrate the many acts of kindness that happen across school communities and has launched the ‘Virtual Kindness Cup’, inviting schools and individuals to award these during Mental Health Awareness Week. It’s an ideal opportunity to recognise the children, teachers, parents/carers and other individuals who have made a positive difference through their kindness at this challenging time.

Place2Be has provided lots of resources to make it as easy as possible for schools to take part, with certificate templates, trophy graphics to use on your social media, or to create your own materials, and activity ideas to help pupils make and award their own Kindness Cups.

Find out more about the ‘Virtual Kindness Cups’ on the Place2Be website here.

Time to Change focuses on the benefits of sleep to our mental health

For some activities that you might want to try or share with staff in your school, then take a look at this activity pack for workplaces from Time to Change.

This year they are encouraging people to consider how they can raise an understanding of the links between sleep and mental health.

Time to Change Mental Health and Sleep Activity Pack for Workplaces