Chamber staff dress in green for Mental Health Awareness week

Staff at Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce have been donning the colour green to mark Mental Health Awareness week.

May is Mental Health Awareness month, as well as having Mental Health Awareness week from the 15 to 21 as part of it.

Mental Health Awareness week was established by the Mental Health Foundation which has been active since 1949, with a vision to create a world where everyone has good mental health.

Each year, Mental Health Awareness week focuses on a new topic, with the topic for 2023 being anxiety. Though anxiety is a normal emotion that we will all feel from time to time, it becomes a mental health issue when it begins to affect our daily lives to the extent that we cannot function in the way that we wish, for example if anxiety prevents us from doing something we enjoy, or our feelings of anxiety are disproportionate to the problem.

Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce 's Diversity and Inclusion Belonging (DIB) group invited everyone to wear an item of green clothing yesterday, May 17, in honour of and to raise awareness of anxiety and mental health in the workplace, as well as sharing some tips on how you can support a co-worker who is dealing with anxiety.

Courteney Boden, marketing and events co-ordinator at Innovate UK EDGE and member of the GBCC DIB group, said: “We hope that by raising awareness of this important matter, that people who are suffering from anxiety will feel supported, and anyone who feels that their anxiety is starting to get out of control will be equipped with some information and advice on how to begin managing it. ”

For more information on Mental Health Awareness week, visit the Mental Health Foundation website.

Check out some of the latest Mental Health Awareness blogs on the GBCC Chamber website here.