‘Tuning in’ to mental health

October was mental health month, with the theme of ‘tune in’. Bellarine Psychology in Victoria wanted to do something more than the usual social media awareness to connect with their team and local community, so a morning volunteering at parkrun was a natural fit.

Marnie Holden, a Clinical Psychologist at Bellarine Psychology, tells us more.

Mental Health Month was focused on tuning into the stigma of mental health, and parkrun is a great way to highlight that all health is mental health. Whether you walk, run or volunteer, everybody is physically active and connected with their community. We therefore reached out to Ocean Grove parkrun, and they were excited for a group of us from the practice to come along and volunteer.

We put the idea out to our team with pretty short notice but were able to easily attract a group of volunteers. A few friends and family also joined in. Most of us had never been to Ocean Grove parkrun before, and some of us had never been to parkrun at all, but the core volunteer team were welcoming and patient in explaining the roles to us in the rain!

The weather was not ideal, having rained right up to the start of the event, but fortunately the rain held off until just before the tail walkers came in. We enjoyed chatting with some regulars as well as some parkrun tourists who stopped by on their travels back to Queensland to get their ‘O’ in the parkrun alphabet challenge!

We were hoping to highlight that we all have a chance to ‘Tune In’ to things we can do as individuals for our own, and others’ mental health, and that we need to consider the bigger social and community picture if we are going to make real change in our mental health and wellbeing. Throughout the weeks leading up to the event, we shared some information through social media about the mental health benefits of volunteering, physical activity and social connections, aiming to both increase awareness of mental health and connect this to some potential actions to improve our own and others mental health through a local community activity.

Marnie Holden