It is now over a year since we first entered the first national lockdown due to Coronavirus.
During this year of ‘stay at home,’ we have seen many changes to the way we can now conduct our lives.
We have not been allowed to visit elderly relatives in care homes, travel and holidays have been restricted, children have had to face schooling at home and not been allowed to play with friends – putting even more strain on parents and family members.
Many people have had to be furloughed from work, particularly those in the hospitality area. We have seen many of the large retail shops go into administration with the loss of thousands of jobs and not least and with great sadness, not to mention the one hundred and twenty thousand families who have lost a loved one in this terrible pandemic. Is it no wonder that mental health features so much within the press and media.
There were two community conversations during 2019 held by local charity Honiton Health Matters, where experts from Exeter University reported, even then, on the increase in the state of people’s mental health, in particular the young people at our schools and college. This also was reflected in the parents looking after these children and so Honiton Health Matters set out to offer bite sized training to businesses and other local organisations with the aim of launching a charter to make Honiton a mental health friendly town.
Unfortunately, just as they were to launch the charter, we entered the first lockdown and they have since not been able to complete this work.
However, they worked closely with Honiton-based Parental Minds CIC, to set up a Honiton Mental Health Network group with up to 50 Devon based organisations taking part, including Young Devon, Devon Partnership Trust, Honiton Carers, Recovery Devon, Honiton Memory Café, #BroCheck, Headlight, Honiton SEND group and Honiton’s Health and Wellbeing social prescribing coaches to name but a few.
The network meet (via Zoom) every six weeks to exchange views and information and have set up a Facebook page that everyone can access. This page is for all services who are supporting individuals with their mental health in and around Honiton. It is somewhere that we can all share up to date information on what our services are offering so that the public can have a one stop shop where they can find help and advice. This information is also available on Honiton Health Matters website www.honitonhealthmatters.org.uk