Mental Health Awareness Week

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week — an annual event that encourages us all to think about our mental wellbeing, tackle stigma and increase awareness of mental health conditions.

This year’s theme is anxiety. Anxiety is a normal emotion in us all and is part of the natural flight or fight response designed to protect us from danger.

Lots of things can lead to feelings of anxiety, including exam pressures, relationships, starting a new job or other big life events. We can also get anxious when it comes to things to do with money and not being able to meet our basic needs, like heating our home or buying food.

From time to time we all need support but it can sometimes be difficult to know where to turn. To make it easier to navigate the support available, we have created a helpful catalogue of the different support organisations and charities across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.

The organisations and charities are categorised by age into adult, children and young people and older people and are listed alphabetically so finding the right organisation is as seamless as possible.

At Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, we also offer a range of services and resources that have been developed by our teams to support your mental health and wellbeing.

Stepiau is our digital resourced developed by the Primary Mental Health Support Service (PMHSS) for Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.

The Stepiau website is available to people of all ages across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan and offers free mental health advice, self-help resources and information about the open access courses and therapeutic groups available.

For more information, please visit stepiau.org

Our Emotional Wellbeing & Mental Health website has been co-produced with children and young people and healthcare professionals to offer useful information and resources on emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Developed by our Children, Young People and Family Service, the website also contains useful information about the different resources and services available and how to access them.

For more information, visit cavyoungwellbeing.wales/

Furthermore, everybody across Wales has access SilverCloud’s online programmes.

SilverCloud is an online therapy platform that uses proven methods like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help people manage their problems by encouraging them to change the way they think and behave.

There are 17 programmes available covering different topics, such as anxiety, depression, phobia and parental wellbeing.

For more information, visit cavuhb.nhs.wales/our-services/mental-health/silvercloud/