Mental Health Week at Crawley Town

In support of Mental Health Awareness Week last week, we decided to do something fun and inclusive to raise awareness for those who are struggling with mental health.

A workshop on Body Image and Mental Health was delivered in partnership with Sussex Oakleaf and The Big Mental Health Pop-Up in Burgess Hill.

The workshop was well attended, and covered a variety of aspect based on how body image affects mental health, with a focus on how social media platforms play their part in this.

Darren Ford, Community Development Manager, “It was a good opportunity for us to work with Sussex Oakleaf and to be able to deliver the Body Image workshop.

Within our community delivery, we work with a range of individuals who are experiencing mental health problems, partly due to the pressure added by social media. In Sport, we are hearing more stories of athletes battling with mental health problems and hopefully the workshop, enabled the participants to feel more comfortable with themselves and also gain some insight on how they may be able to manage their problems.

Mental Health is becoming less of a taboo subject and the more we can support the community through our projects, we hope that we can be a part of their journey to improving their physical and mental wellbeing.”

To raise awareness throughout the community for Mental Health Awareness Week, we challenged many different community groups and organisations around Sussex to the Keepy Uppy Challenge.

As a growing community with a large youth audience, sometimes following the trends helps to grow more awareness for important topics such as Mental Health. This year the theme was Body Image, which is a prevalent issue amongst young people in the community as they fight to find their own image in today’s society.

We started the week on Monday, with 3 members of our team tried out the Keepy Uppy Challenge to show those who tag how it’s done and to get involved with supporting Mental Health.

This challenge is an exciting way to get everyone in the community involved in some way.

Adam Wicking, Premier League Co-ordinator said this about mental health week, “As an organisation we interact with so many different people on a weekly basis.

It’s been great for us to raise awareness amongst the community as it is so crucial to look after people’s mental health.”

On Tuesday evening, we visited Langley Green Kicks, to get some of the participants involved with the challenge.

On Thursday evening, the Mini Reds, Saturday Soccer Centre and Elite & Development Centres attended an evening on the People’s Pension Stadium pitch, where 2 participants from our U12’s took part in the Keep Uppy challenge.

The Move the Goalpost programme we attended focused on helping those in the community suffering with mental health issues and to help participants gain the confidence to turn their lives around. Two of our participants had a go at the Keepy Uppy Challenge in support of Mental Health.

This session has been so important in the recovery of many participants past and present.

To finish the week, we attended two girls orientated sessions.

The first one at Saint Peter’s Catholic Primary School, where we were hosting our Premier League Primary Stars programme in the classroom followed by 45 minutes of PE.

To finish the week, we attended the Premier League Girls session. Some of our BTEC female students attend this session as extra practice, and they also took part in the Keepy Uppy Challenge.

Overall, we had a successful week promoting positive Mental Health in the community.

We had a great response from those people and organisations we tagged to get involved with the challenge.

This in return has helped us to achieve a greater reach and support for our Mental Health Programmes.

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