Do you know that if you are a carer, then you are doing something not only for your ‘cared for’, but also for the community. Caring for someone when life can be difficult for yourself should be celebrated. Thats why London ADASS, which stands for Directors of Adult Social Services aimed to put on a festival for carers. The aim of London ADASS is to improve adult social care across London and to identify ways of doing this as cost-effectively as possible.
The festival was developed and brought together by many other carer organisations who help plan and run the festival. The first London borough to have the Carer’s festival was the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Eventually each London borough will have the honor of running the festival each year.
Welcome to another blog post from Acaringmind blogger Matthew Mckenzie. On Saturday 20th of August, I took a trip over to Sydenham Gardens who were hosting their De Frene Summer Festival from 1 till 5 pm.
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 back to another of my mental health and wellbeing event reviews. This next event I have been personally involved in helping to arrange with at least some of my ideas.
The event was on the 26th of July 2014 and it was aimed at young people to explore, learn and connect on expressing their views on wellbeing and mental health. The event was held over at the Maudsley Learning Center, which is a venue over in the London borough of Southwark that hosts wellbeing events, meetings and workshops.
I have written a blog post that led up to the Happy Heads event, which can be viewed here.
I have also made a 22 minute video about my visit to the Happy Heads festival. Feel free to watch the video below.
Going back to the blog post how did the event work out on the day? To be honest although I can give my views, I feel it would be great that a young person who attended the event should give their views on how they felt the event went.
My main view of the event was that the event lived up to its expectations and more, but engaging with young people on health and wellbeing cannot be done with just a festival alone, but this festival was a great start and was certainly well attended.
When I arrived for the event, I ended up volunteering to help out at the Timebanking UK stalls. I talked to a few people on what it means to giving your time and skill in order to help others. Infact the Happy Heads event was centered around five themes being
Being Active
Connecting
Giving
Learning
and finally “taking notice”
The Timebanking UK sections was on the “Giving” theme. I got creative in that zone and built one of my main talent in which I can help others. That talent was on computer skills, which was placed in the “Suitcase of Talent”.
The next part of the festival which I visited was the “Being Active” zone, where I spoke to several fitness instructors on the benefits of being active.
Soon I arrived in a colorful and comfortable room facilitated by “IamGreeds”. Feel free to visited his site. Basically the poet was hoping some young people can express what wellbeing means to them using spoken word, which was read out on the free mic session later on at the festival.
Another section I visited was the Mindfull Fun Fair zone, this area was linked to the “Taking Notice” zone. I spoke to the stall holders about why it is so important to be mindful and be aware of how we treat others or how others treat us. The stall holders were from Mindfull, which is an online support, information and advice about mental health and emotional wellbeing aimed at young people.
Another stall holder at the Mindfull Fun Fair zone was representing the “beatbullying” organisation. He gave me a run down on how bullying affects young people and why the beatbullying campaign was set up to tacking bullying.
Soon it wasn’t long before I got my creative energies following and I wandered into the DJ mixing room, which had quite an impressive array of sets placed in the room and excellent DJ equipment. Mixing and scratching the records actually made me feel quite young again.
The music mixing zone was set up by RAW Sounds. Raw Sounds is a programme of creative media sessions for people accessing mental health services. Feel free to visit their site here.
One of the most impressive displays I noticed was actually situated at the basement level of the Maudsley Learning Center. This section was being used by the YoungMinds Vs project. YoungMinds vs has been set up to tackle School stress, bullying, sexual pressure, and lack of jobs for young people. I had a great time talking to teenagers at this particular section of the festival on why they feel mental health and wellbeing awareness is important for many in the community.
There are other videos from the Happy Heads festival which I thought to help advertise, feel free to check out those videos as well.
Do you know that if you are a carer, then you are doing something not only for your ‘cared for’, but also for the community. Caring for someone when life can be difficult for yourself should be celebrated. Thats why London ADASS, which stands for Directors of Adult Social Services aimed to put on a festival for carers. The aim of London ADASS is to improve adult social care across London and to identify ways of doing this as cost-effectively as possible.
A Caring Mind 