Welcome to another mental health post from Carer Matthew Mckenzie. On the 4th of February 2016, it was National Time To Talk day, which was championed by Time To Change, which is England’s biggest programme to challenge mental health stigma and discrimination.
Hi everyone, welcome to another blog post from Matthew Mckenzie a mental health carer from the London Borough of Lewisham. As of this blog post, it is World Mental Health Day 2015 or #WMHD2015. There are lots of events that are being held on October the 10th, but there are plenty more mental health events being held in the month of October.
Welcome to another blog post on mental health and carers. This blog post is on the Lewisham Mental Health Connection conference for 2015.
The Lewisham Mental Health Connection or LMHC for short stands to put mental health awareness on the map in Lewisham. It is not to say that other organisations do not do enough to raise mental health awareness and combat mental health issues, but with the LMHC the power is in the connections where organisations, groups and individuals work together to make a change in the community.
Welcome back to another one of my blog posts. This time my post is going to be on another event I attended some time ago. I had actually meant to write up about my experience at this event much sooner, but unfortunately I fell unwell due to a nasty cold. However never mind about that, I feel much better now and to be honest one of the reasons I felt a lot better was my experience at the El Camino performance provide by the Alchemy Project.
Every summer the London Borough of Lewisham holds its Lewisham Peoples day. The festival takes place over at Mountsfield Park and lasts most of the day.
So for Lewisham Peoples day 2015, I wanted to try and blog about the festival, although mainly about the Mental Health and Well-Being angle, which is what I was interested in.
As a member of the Lewisham Mental Health Connection, I spent some time at their stall talking to staff and volunteers. The weather was lovely, I did not notice any trouble and people were friendly. It was a great day out, but I coming from a mental health and well-being background, it was not long before I checked out the other stalls at the festival.
Welcome to another of my mental health blog posts. Every now and then I attend events regarding mental health, carer awareness, psychology or psychiatry field or just general health events. However although I enjoy attending such lovely events, I really enjoy events, presentations or debates on Art.
I admit that I am not an artist myself although I am creative, I am certainly not an Art critique either, but then when attending art events, I feel my lack of knowledge can be a good thing, because I have so much to gain and much to learn and enjoy.
Thanks for checking out my blog post on mental health updates, reviews and summaries. Even though I am a carer from Lewisham, I am involved in the Mental Health Trust that provides services in South / South East London, although I do admit I sometimes wander away from South London and sometimes head to other boroughs.
As usual I tend to visit the borough of Croydon to get updates and also raise questions concerning mental health services in that area. I took the time to review Hear Us (Mental Health Service User Project) open forum.
Welcome to another blog post by Matthew Mckenzie a Carer from the London borough of Lewisham. For this blog post, I want to write about a fun event I attended. This event was a walk, which took place on the 20th of June starting late at night till the 21st on sunday morning. The event was a fun filled, healthy and educational.
This walk I took part in was called the Largactyl Midnight Summer Solastice walk, which usually lasts around 5 hours. This walk was held by Cooltan Arts. Cooltan Arts is an Arts and Mental Health Charity based in London and they have been doing walks around the city for around 6 or 7 years. The walks are free to join, but donations are welcome.
Welcome to another of my blog posts on mental health. It has been a while since I have attended any art events. So I thought that I should pop over to North London to visit the Camden Health Centre in order to attend an event called Fragmentary. This event was promoted by the Free Space Gallery.
If you prefer, you can watch the video version of the blog.
The Free Space Gallery promotes health and well – being through the arts using their prominent position within the Kentish Town Health Centre and Queens Crescent Practice. Please check out their site at http://freespacegallery.org/.
So going back to the 5th of June 2015, what exciting art presentations was I expecting to hear and view? Well before I continue, this event was called “Artist talks” and was presented by Fragmentary, which I ll also explain its website called fragmentary.org. Now this site helps to showcase artists work through the view of mental health, especially using photography as the form of creativity. The website is at fragmentary.org
It is mental health awareness week as of the writing of this blog post. Mental Health Awareness week, which runs from 11th to the 17th May is run by the Mental Health Foundation. The Mental Health Foundation is a Charity that helps to improve the lives of those with mental health problems or learning disabilities. The Mental Health Foundation is involved in research, service development and providing information on mental health.
If you wish to see the video. Below is the video version of this blog post
I feel Mental Health Awareness week is important for quite a few reasons, the first reason is obviously raising the awareness of mental health and it does not have to be on mental ill health. I once had a discussion with mental health campaigner Fiona Art who specified that mental health does not have to centre itself around those who are unfortunately mentally unwell or those with live experience.
A Caring Mind 