Today marks World Mental Health Day and here at Durham County Cricket Club we want to see and support people from all walks of life to enjoy the beautiful game of cricket.
One in four adults and one in ten children experience mental illness and Durham CCC aim to raise awareness behind mental health and introduce new audiences to the game of cricket.
We work innovatively to integrate cricket into our mental health programmes and this year we worked closely with the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) and Success North-East & have developed a support group for parents and carers of young people who are struggling with mental health difficulties.
Our Rollercoaster session is a programme that works to raise awareness of children and young people’s mental health, influence the scale and quality of provision and provide practical help of how to navigate the support services available for children and young people.
We aim to use cricket to make a positive difference to the mental health wellbeing of our communities.
The support group runs once a month and across the year we have run three additional mental health parent training workshops and supported a four-week Autism Awareness Course for parents of children with Autism.
Director of the programme for Success NE, Wendy Minhinnett, said: “The partnership between Success NE and DCCC Foundation provides a fantastic opportunity to link mental health with sport and to get creative with how we support people and encourage people to talk about mental health. The group really is making a difference and providing the much-needed support to parents”
Durham Foundation manager, Josie Pointon, added: “We have identified mental health as a key part of the work that we do within our strand of supporting the health and wellbeing of our North-East community.
“Since establishing the Rollercoaster group with Success NE, we have been able to make a significant difference in the lives of many people affected in some way by mental health, whilst actively driving a broader representation of society within the game of cricket.”
Howzat for tackling mental health!