It’s National Walking month and Mental Health Awareness week in May so why not highlight the benefits of walking to your staff and how this can help with their mental health.  To support this initiative in your company you could:

• research local areas and highlight interesting places to walk to your employees.
• highlight to employees the opportunities where they could walk instead of use a car i.e. getting to work or on the school run (where appropriate).
• have a friendly competition of who can do the most steps in May. There are lots of free apps like Pedometer that your employees can download onto their phone.

Mental Health Awareness Week

(https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week) has lots of resources that can be used to engage your employees and promote mental health.  If you are looking to invest in a positive mental health environment in your setting, we have talk coming up from a trained mental health expert so keep an eye on our Sprouts Community Facebook page for more details.  Paul is passionate about people, their mental health and their well-being. He has previously suffered from anxiety and depression, and in 2016 lost his best friend to suicide. He uses his experience of how debilitating and painful mental health problems can be to help others; previously in the corporate world and more recently, following redundancy, as a freelance consultant. Whether he is presenting onstage to a large audience or working with smaller groups or individuals, the message remains the same. It’s ok to not be ok and it’s good to talk. 

World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development could be used as a learning day for children in your setting as well as your employees as they will be involved in the activities.  You could talk about different cultures, different foods within those cultures and how we all dress differently. https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/culturaldiversityday