Every year, Mental Health Awareness week takes place to increase conversation around mental health and to encourage greater understanding of its significance.

To mark the event this year between the 13th and 20th May, the Tutor Trust organised for a variety of activities to take place to increase mental health awareness among staff and tutors.

For our tutors, we organised a special CPD event that showed them how to incorporate mental health awareness into their tutoring sessions. The CPD session was delivered by James from the charity Place 2 Be, who specialise in teaching school pupils about mental health. They put on a workshop for the tutors, offering advice in how to understand and support pupils who may have mental health issues.

The tutors found the information hugely useful and said it would help them in future sessions. Tutors who were unable to make the CPD were sent information from the charity, links to their resources and a full video recording of the session so they could catch up on the valuable insights they’d missed. [Tutor can find this video on the Tutor Trust Dropbox site using the unique login details]

The office team organised a ‘Tea and Talk’ day, inspired by the initiative set up by the Mental Health Foundation. Members of the Tutor Trust team took part by bringing their best attempts at cake baking to work, so everyone could have a relaxing afternoon sitting down and chatting over a slice or two.

We collected contributions for the Mental Health Foundation and managed to raise £42.13 with some fantastic efforts on display.

Throughout the week, our social media platforms were covering these events and providing specialised content for our various followers. On Instagram, a day was dedicated to sharing office members’ tips on how to relax and cope with stress. Statistics, information and advice relating to mental health was sent out in the form of tweets, posts and videos every day of Mental Health Awareness week.

A blog has also been published, consisting of experience sharing from tutors Judi and Eva, as well as our Tutor Coordinator, Will. Here are some extracts:

“Something as simple as keeping a written diary can be very useful; not only can it help you to articulate your emotions, but it’s also great to look back at how far you’ve come!” – Eva Curless, English Tutor

“Make sure you allow at least half an hour every day (preferably an hour!) for ‘me time’. Read a book, go for a walk, talk to a friend on the phone or have a bath.” – Judi McGrath, Primary Tutor

It’s been great getting involved with Mental Health Awareness week this year – we hope our tutors and followers learnt as much as we did. You can still see all our updates from the week on Twitter and Instagram, be sure to check them out using the handle, @TheTutorTrust.