The Vincentia Hub will welcome the community on Saturday 11 October for a free Mental Wellbeing Day, offering expert talks, practical resources, healthy food, and soothing activities designed to support mental health and connection.
Mental wellbeing is the focus of a free program by the Vincentia Connections committee on Saturday 11 October, 10am-3pm and open to anyone from teens through to our elders. There is variety on the program that will include a handful of helpful and informative talks from experts as well as delicious healthy snacks and lunch to share, plus some wellness activities to soothe your nervous system, such as sound bathing and mandala mindfulness.
Jane Daisley-Snow, one of the organisers and a retired psychotherapist, says the intention of this day is to help destigmatise mental health issues, encourage communication about mental health and provide information and toolkits for people who might know someone who is going through a tough time.
“There’s around 4.3 million Australians who have experienced difficulty with their mental health in the past 12 months and sadly there have been 554 suspected and confirmed suicide deaths, which is higher than previous years.”
Jane says this Wellbeing Day is a chance for our community to check in with their own mental health and that of their loved ones and neighbours.
“October is Mental Health Month in Australia, and it’s about taking steps towards looking after your mental health. Our Wellbeing Day includes local services and practitioners from mainstream medical as well as complementary practitioners, to allow people to do a little inventory of how they’re going and what are the options.”
Mental Health Inventory
On the program is Jamie Rose from the Rural Adversity Mental Health Program on the South Coast, who will ask, how are you going? What can you do? As part of a Mental Wellbeing Inventory. Jamie will be providing lots of resources for people to have in their mental health toolkit, such as information about services such as help lines and counselling.
Local nurse practitioner Jo Marjoram, who recently ran some well-received workshops for women going through perimenopause and menopause, will be talking about a holistic guide to women’s health – something the men in our lives can also benefit from as they support the women around them.
Help Your Loved Ones
Jane, along with Suzanne Freund who is a mental health first aid trainer and co-organiser of the day’s program, will help us to develop good communication techniques to approach people in our lives who we might perceive as struggling with their mental health. The talk will cover what to do, and importantly, what not to do in such a situation.
“The idea is to bring the community together and to normalise what some people might feel they are going through on their own,” Jane says. “Knowing how to approach someone in a sensitive way, an effective way can make a big difference.”
A delicious, nutritious and healthy lunch will be provided to share, before local naturopath Deborah Lloyd talks about food as medicine, offering some great information about how our guts and our nutrition can impact on our mental wellbeing as well as our physical self.
Soothe Your Nervous System
The day will end on a soothing note, with a sound immersion experience by Rebecca Hall, who will use crystal singing bowls and other instruments to bathe us in sound waves, while Jane will guide us through a mandala mindfulness practice.
Jane says, “The idea is we do the ‘head’ stuff in the morning and people will go home with a bag of resources and a better understanding of how to recognise someone struggling, or themselves, and how to respond effectively – it’s what we refer to as the ‘accidental counsellor’.”
She says most of us know about simple strategies like walking and keeping active, and the positive impact these can have on our mental wellbeing. The Hub – a vacant shop at the Vincentia shopping village that has been kindly provided to Vincentia Matters by the property agent, Mintus – has become a valuable space for the Jervis Bay & Basin community and will stock the leaflets and other information about mental health services from the Wellbeing Day.
Book Your Seat
Places are limited to 40 for this free event, so people are encouraged to book their seat via email, bookingsvcch@gmail.com which will also help with catering for the morning tea and lunch.
