Run a craft event to promote good mental health

Offering support for this activity

• You could look out for key dates in the calendar that you could plan your talk around, such as World Mental Health Day or Children's Mental Health Week.
• This might be the first time that a young person has explored the issue of mental health or thought about speaking with someone about this. If a young person shares their own mental health problems, let them know they can talk to you afterwards and that they can get support from Childline (call 0800 1111 or go to childline.org.uk).
• Remember to follow the ‘Young People First’ code of practice (the Yellow Card) in any conversations, and read our guidance on supporting mental health in Scouts.

Plan the event

1. Gather everyone together and explain that everyone will work together to plan and run a ‘craft and care’ event for the local community, which will aim to raise awareness about mental health and wellbeing. As well as being an opportunity to raise awareness, many people find that taking part in craft activities is good for their wellbeing.
2. Everyone should work together to choose a date, a time and a suitable, accessible location for their event. They may need to choose a few dates, just in case the chosen venue’s busy. Make sure you plan an accessible and inclusive event. Think about any dates or times to avoid, and how people will get to and around the venue. Will you ask people to arrive at a certain time, or run a drop in event?
3. Everyone should work together to decide the purpose of the event. What do you want to raise awareness of? What do you want people to get out of the event?  What do you want peoples experience at the event to be like? You could think about how your event links to the five ways to wellbeing, which you can find at the bottom of this page. As a group, decide if you’ll be doing any fundraising at this event. If you are, you might want to set an entry price for the event, use fundraising buckets, or plan to sell things such as fruit, cakes, and drinks. If you’re fundraising, choose a mental health organisation to donate the funds to.
4. The group should then chat about if there are any special guests you’d like to involve in the event. Are there any local organisations specialising in mental health? They could be invited to host a talk on the day, have a stall with resources for people to take or be asked to help promote the event.
5. As you group you need to decide what crafts you’ll offer at the event and what equipment you’ll need, including any instructions. Will there be one craft? Or will there be several crafting tables?

Run the event

1. Everyone should arrive around 30 minutes before the event to help set up and get prepared for your guests. Decorations, such as bunting, will help the room look brighter and more welcoming, and it’s important to get tables ready with instructions and equipment for each craft.
2. When the visitors arrive, some people could be assigned to greet them and make them feel welcome.
3. If visitors are all arriving at a similar time, someone could start the event with a talk about what they’ve learned about mental health, where people can get help, why good mental wellbeing is so important, and why people need to look after their mental health, just like they would their physical health. You can also have this information printed out and put out on each table for people to read or take home with them.
4. All of the guests can get stuck in to the crafts, with plenty of help from everyone in the Scout group. You may want to serve drinks, have snacks or have seating areas for people to sit and relax.
5. At the end of the event, someone could thank everyone for coming. This may be a great time to introduce a speaker from a local organisation to talk about mental health, if someone was available.
6. If you’re running a drop in event, think about how to make sure you can spread awareness with all the visitors.