The 10th October 2010 (10/10/10) is World Mental Health Day.

This is a day, celebrated around the world, to talk openly about mental health, raise public awareness and try to challenge some of the stigma and misinformation around mental health conditions.

In the U.K, a number of organizations are organizing events to celebrate.

I remember a time when I was scared to meet new people, afraid of letting them down. I could not commit to anything for the same reason. I was desperate to do something but didn’t know how I could given the state of my mental health. I was never sure how I would be one day to the next and finding someone who understood that would be very difficult.

Supporting someone with a mental health issue as a volunteer is not so different to good practice in all volunteer management. The following tips were put together through Capital Volunteering a London wide project that has now closed led by CSV and the London Development Centre. Do provide access to information around benefits, often people are on disability benefits and a move into volunteering can cause anxiety around this. Do build links with employment and training providers that might help people with training and support [...]

At Volunteer Centre Slough we have recently developed a project to support those with mental health issues into volunteering. Over recent years we have worked with local support agencies and the community mental health team with the view to finding sustainable volunteering roles for their clients. We found that many people were open to the idea of volunteering but were unable to take the first step. As a result of a collaboration with our borough council and funding to develop a similar project we developed the [...]