Express yourself, boost your mood and win

Express yourself, boost your mood and win

Young people in Somerset can have fun expressing themselves seven different ways over seven days in a boost to improve mental health – and be in with a chance to win a prize as part of Place2be’s Children’s Mental Health Week.

Somerset County Council has teamed up with ‘Young Somerset’ to launch the competition to win a wellbeing pack, which will run between 1-7 February.

They are challenging young people to come up with seven ways they can express themselves throughout the week as expressing how you feel is important for mental health.

This year’s theme for the awareness campaign is ‘Express Yourself’. Expressing yourself is about finding ways to share feelings, thoughts, or ideas, through creativity. This could be through art, music, writing and poetry, dance and drama, photography and film, and doing activities that make you feel good.

To be in with a chance to win, all young people have to do is share their ideas on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter and tag @youngsomerset in.

There are different themes for each day, allowing young people to explore how they would like to express themselves.

The themes are:

  • Day 1 – Dress to Express. Forget fashion and forget what

anyone else thinks – this is the day to wear an outfit that is 100% you.

  • Day 2 – Create a playlist that expresses who you are as a person. Whether it’s the style, title, lyrics or beat – if it reflects you add it in.
  • Day 3 – make a word cloud of all the words that represent you. This could include your personality, feelings, passions, hobbies, dreams and more.
  • Day 4 – Choose an emotion (e.g. happy, excited or angry) and create a form of art that expresses this. It could be anything from a drawing to creating a dance to creating a dance or video – get as creative as you like.
  • Day 5 – Find a quote that reflects who you are or inspires you to express who you are. Stick it to your wall or save it as your phone wallpaper, for a daily reminder.
  • Day 6 – Create a photo montage of everything that reflects you including all the ways that you like to express yourself. Think about your hobbies, skills, likes and passions.
  • Day 7 – Write a bucket list of all the ways you’re going to express yourself this year.

Councillor Clare Paul, Somerset County Council’s member responsibility for health and wellbeing, said: “This is such a fun way to get young people thinking about how they can express themselves and a great way to celebrate Children’s Mental Health Week.

“It has been a tough year for us all, we have all had many things to feel anxious about and for children that is no different. I would encourage all young people to get involved – I am sure it is the morale boost many are looking for.”

Nik Harwood, CEO of Young Somerset, commented: “Self-expression is such an important part of life – it’s showing others who we are, what we love, how we see the world.

“The freedom and confidence that comes with expressing yourself, in whatever way, is a real boost to resilience and wellbeing. I love that we are encouraging children and young people to be creators – not just consumers – and what better place to start than this?”

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