This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and in support of this we wanted to share with you a campaign that is being run by the Mental Health Foundation (mentalhealth.org.uk).

The mental health and wellbeing of your workforce is a priority especially when their job is to look after some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The mental health and wellbeing of the people you support is also a priority, and it is important to remember this especially with the additional pressures and differences to normality that the pandemic has caused.

The Mental Health Foundation are running a campaign as part of Mental Health Awareness Week called #ConnectingWithNature.

“There is a lot of good research to support the role that nature can play in protecting and supporting our mental health. For many of us, ‘being in nature’ may not be as easy as it sounds. The good news is, you don’t have to climb a mountain to feel the benefit – there are lots of simple ways to bring nature into your everyday.” The Mental Health Foundation

We wanted to share some examples of things you can do with nature that you can incorporate into your services and get the users of your service as well as your staff involved in, to take your awareness of nature from beyond your four walls.

1. If inside, open a window to listen to birdsong
2. Go out to local parks, forests, nature trails for walks
3. Connect with nature using all senses
4. Create games around guessing what animals you can see/hear outside
5. Do arts and crafts using items from nature, or drawing your surroundings
6. Get plants inside to bring nature indoors
7. Create champions within your service to look after plants, recycle or do gardening
8. Have competitions, such as growing sunflowers to see whose is the tallest
9. Create games around naming things you can hear when outside (different types of bird etc)
10. Start a vegetable patch if you have the space
11. Set up birdfeeders around your garden to watch birds come and go
12. Watch TV programmes about nature
13. Take care of nature by doing things like recycling

We really hope this is something you find useful and is something you can share with your teams and colleagues.

If you would like any more information on the above or have any questions, please either reach out to myself or contact your lead consultant. To get in touch, please email recruitment@ajrecruitment.com or call us on 03305 552233!

As a specialist, family run recruitment business, we provide a proactive and consultative approach to recruitment. We help organisations to target issues such as continuity of staffing, reducing spend where you have a high volume of agency usage and supporting those who have specific talent requirements or are in hard to fill locations. We can help with any immediate staffing requirements or longer-term recruitment projects to ultimately save you time and money on agency spend.

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