Time to Talk Day

On February 4th it was ‘Time to Talk’ day, a day dedicated to getting the Nation talking about Mental Health. With mental health problems affecting 1 in every 4 people every year, the Students’ Union and the Contact Course decided it was ‘Time to Talk’.

Sally Ware, Contact Course Leader, explains how she got the group talking during one of their English sessions. Perfect for practising speaking and listening skills!

“I applied for an information pack and received a box of teabags and coasters. The theme was to have a cuppa and a chat, so we discussed some of the statistics about mental health and the group were quite shocked by these. Some of them talked about people they knew that had issues and we talked a lot about just showing we care is sometimes all that’s needed.

One student told us a great little story about feeling anxious, turns out the residential home where she lives is having new bathrooms fitted, and she was a little anxious about the mess!

At the very least, ‘Time to Talk’ day has heightened their awareness to mental health issues and encourage them to talk about their own problems, whilst enjoying a nice cup of tea”.

Over at our College Road campus, I set up a ‘Time to Talk’ station in the SU Café. Armed with copious amounts of tea, biscuits and leaflets, I spoke to students about the on-site and off-site mental health services that are available in Herefordshire and the surrounding area.

This includes our on-site counsellor, the Strong Young Minds project and the NHS Let’s Talk 2gether Service. At the end of both sessions our conversations were logged on the official ‘Time to Talk ‘website. To date over 83,759 conversations about mental health across England have occurred, let’s keep talking!

Students can find more information about mental health services on HCA’s Studentnet page under Health and Wellbeing.

Nat