The theme of 2022’s World Mental Health Day is ‘make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority’ and this year the Health and Wellbeing team has been delivering a number of initiatives to develop and enhance the experiences of a variety of different communities, engaging young and old in their health and wellbeing in a bid to make positive change.

Firstly, the Chelsea Champions programme aims to improve the emotional wellbeing and resilience of young people, offering schools an innovative, tailored timetable of activities that builds capacity, and coping mechanisms that best meet the needs of the school. The project embeds a trusted adult (Chelsea Champion) into school life full-time, offering the earliest possible emotional wellbeing intervention.

The Chelsea Champions programme will continue its impactful work within Fulham Boys School, Fulham Cross Academy, Chelsea Academy, Thomas Bennett Community College and Merstham Park School over the course of the academic year.

Mrs Strachan, assistant headteacher at Merstham Park School, praises the positive impact the Chelsea Champions programme is having on their pupils.

‘Since recruiting the Chelsea Champion at MPS we have been able to broaden our range of interventions we offer to students. By primarily focusing on mental health and resilience, our Champion has been able to work both one-on-one with key students and also run targeted intervention groups.’

‘Our Champion often uses physical exercise to engage usually disaffected students, which has proven highly successful. When analysing behaviour and attendance trends we have seen an improvement with those that our Champion has worked directly with, something which we and our students are really proud of!’

Secondly, the Population Health department have been delivering a number of programmes, some of which are in partnership with the NHS Imperial Hospital. All programmes have proven to have a huge impact on participants mental health through socialising, being active and peer-to-peer support.

A new programme which started recently is in partnership with Parents Active and Mind, this 12-week programme works with parent and carers of disabled children to support them mentally and physically. Through bi-weekly exercise sessions and bi-weekly psychoeducation with Mind, these sessions aim to aid the parent and carers in supporting themselves, each other and building friendships.

Also, the Healthy Schools programme is delivered across primary schools within Hammersmith and Fulham, offering 12-week healthy lifestyle programmes to children around healthy eating, being active, setting goals and positive mental health. These are great fun and a fantastic way to get children more active and thinking about how to live a healthy and happy life with their families.

Our Activate Seniors programme includes adapted sports, specifically Walking Football, exercise and mobility sessions and a men’s health programme. Adapted sports provision has broadened to allow delivery to be more inclusive of all abilities across London, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex and Surrey.

This is largely due to the focus on our partnerships with Age UK, Open Age and Royal Parks who have supported our programmes.

The exercise and mobility programme keeps participants active and moving, aiming to improve strength, balance and stability. The programme is a blended delivery model, with sessions both in person and online allowing participants the option of exercising from home or socialising within the community.

Men’s health is a new programme which aims to support men to be more active through exercise sessions, as well as coming together to socialise and build relationships within the group and community.

One male walking footballer from the London Regent's Park session thanked the Foundation for helping him to regain confidence after suffering with health issues.

‘Last Christmas I turned 50 after having spent a challenging 18 months coping with long Covid. I remember many days when I walked around Regent’s Park out of breath using my stick not knowing if I would ever recover. I started to feel very down. I lost my confidence and I couldn’t imagine much of a future.

‘Then a few weeks ago I was taking my usual walk around Regent’s Park, and I discovered Walking Football. I hadn’t kicked a football in 20 years, and I never imagined I would be playing football ever again. I came to my first session in September, and then I got to play the following week at the Walton Festival, and since then I haven’t stopped.

‘The whole experience has been incredible, and I am looking forward to the months and I hope years ahead. I want to thank you and all at Chelsea FC Foundation and all my fellow team-mates.’