Supporting Mental Health Awareness Week 2020

At Sanctuary Supported Living we take the mental health and wellbeing of our residents and staff seriously. We’re proud to once again support Mental Health Awareness Week and draw attention to the support and tools available to promote positive mental health.

At a time of social distancing measures, it’s more important than ever that we take time to look after our mental health. Our incredible teams have found inspiring solutions to support residents, when they too face their own challenges to cope with the difficult circumstances presented by Covid-19.

Whatever residents’ personal preferences or support needs, staff have found ways to help them remain positive and in control of their mental health. Some services have created personalised activity packs which might include a puzzle, a deck of playing cards, crafts or poems, depending on what each resident would enjoy the most. Some young residents have stepped outside their flats for Zumba (social distancing style), while others have taken part in cooking competitions, or used this time to nurture their talents by creating their own artwork.

Kindness, community and supporting one another has never been more important and so we’d like to thank all the local communities and organisations  who have sent kind words of support, baked cakes, donated items and made PPE for our frontline keyworkers. We’ve also shared many of them on our Twitter page. These gestures have shown that the kindness comes in many ways and it does wonders for our mental health and our ability to support and care for vulnerable people.

All Sanctuary Supported Living services provide mental health support to residents, but we also have specialist mental health services which provide support to people with a diagnosed mental health condition. Read some inspirational resident stories  that demonstrate that anything is possible when people get the right support. Watch our video to hear residents’ experience of living in supported housing and how it makes them feel.