Mental Health Awareness All Year Round

With May being Mental Health Awareness Month 2022, charities and organisations can tend to slow down after it. Universities in York have events planned all year round to target student problems. Mental Health Awareness Month targets a specific one each year.

York St John University's Wellbeing Leader, Chris Smith, told YorNews: "In May, York St John Students' Union recognised Mental Health Awareness Week 2022. We focused on the theme of loneliness, as a student at university - a subject that often gets overlooked."

"University can be an incredible experience but it can also be lonely and isolating."

"We released a full week's worth of events, blogs and content which were completed with the collaboration of our students at YSJ. A highlight was the hosting of our Wellbeing Café in the SU where students could come for a chat with us, or to pet our wellbeing dog Blue.

Our blog posts were well circulated on social media with a lot of clicks registered for our articles on student loneliness statistics, resources to combat loneliness and what the SU are doing to proactively combat the issue.

This week was a resounding success, and we are striving to ensure that discussion around mental health is not limited to certain days, weeks or months of the year, but all year round."

York St John University student, Noah Spark, told YorNews: "As a Trans man my experience with mental health have ben quite impacted in a negative light. I suffer with depression, PTSD and anxiety and the support is quite hard to receive."

"When I have been on the NHS therapy list, it is a long wait and when I have received help for my depression and anxiety it has been very aimed at my transition. Now this is a big impact on my depression but it also isn't, however, that is the main focus with many mental health teams. I reached out to my University well-being team and their team have been better and more supportive with both transition depression and my other depression, and helping me work through both sides of this. My GP has been supportive with giving me medication to help with my mental health and I have seen improvements with this, but still suffer daily."

At York St John University, 'Blue's Sessions' are available all year round. Blue is the university's wellbeing dog who can be booked for 1:1, 15 minute sessions. Blue also attends events ran by the university including ones which ran through Mental Health Awareness Week. A therapy dog can be extremely calming. Blue is beneficial for many students Mental Health.

Take care of oneself, physically and mentally, always. It doesn't just have to be May. Just because there's a month dedicated to Mental Health doesn't mean that there is no help throughout the year.

Many events happen tackling a range of different 'themes' throughout the year. However, the month does allow for organisations to have a focus and really spread awareness.