Calderdale celebrates wellbeing!

South West Yorkshire Mental Health Trust held a Festival of Wellbeing at Northbridge Leisure Centre in Halifax today to celebrate World Mental Health Day. The event attracted hundreds of people from across Calderdale who turned out to show their support and find out about ways to keep their minds healthy.

The event was just one of many celebrations taking place across the Trust and throughout the world to promote wellbeing and tackle the stigma that surrounds mental illness.

This year’s celebrations were opened by special guest, Dr Rufus May who is a clinical psychologist. The event was led predominantly by service user group, M Power along with Voluntary Action Calderdale.

The festival included live music, ‘pets as therapy’ dogs, arts and crafts, samba drums performed by local music group Samb’alifax and complementary therapies such as aromatherapy massage, Indian head massage, reiki and reflexology. Visitors were also encouraged to get active with dancing and exercise classes. For the less energetic, there were health walks and gardening workshops as well as meditation sessions run by the Buddhist Centre.

Beverley Mellor, who is on the Trust’s member’s council attended the event and said, "Its been nice to see so many different things going on at the different stalls, especially because they keep everyone happy and entertained."

Spacey Redman also went along to the day and said, "It has been a really positive day. I hope they do it again next year!"

Chair of the Trust, Joyce Catterick said, "This event was a real triumph and gave local people the opportunity to get together, try new things and raise awareness of mental health. Most importantly people have had lots of fun and learnt about ways to boost their wellbeing."

She added, "We now have 10,000 members joined up to the organisation and it was great to see so many of them turn out to this event and share in the celebrations."