Now in its 15th year, Mental Health Awareness Week aims to encourage the conversation around mental health to fight discrimination and stigma and promote good mental wellbeing. For one week in May, Mental Health Foundation campaigns around a specific topic. This year the week will fall from 11-17 May and will be on the theme of mindfulness.

News update: The importance of managing occupational safety and health (OSH) and in particular psychosocial risks and stress in the workplace was demonstrated in the sharing of good practices. A two-day benchmarking event for Official Campaign Partners of the Healthy Workplaces Campaign was organised by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). For further details, see the event summary.

How wellbeing policy is moving centre stage: NEF response

Recently the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, to which NEF provides the secretariat, held a hustings event at Westminster, where candidates were invited to set out their party’s position on wellbeing. Visit the NEF blog to see their summary.

The Workplace Wellbeing Charter is an opportunity for employers to demonstrate their commitment to the health and well-being of their workforce. The positive impact that employment can have on health and wellbeing is now well documented. There is also strong evidence to show how having a healthy workforce can reduce sickness absence, lower staff turnover and boost productivity – this is good for employers, workers and the wider economy.

Parents rarely spot child obesity

Parents hardly ever spot obesity in their children, resulting in damaging consequences for health, doctors warn.
In a study of 2,976 families in the UK, only four parents thought their child was very overweight. Medical assessments put the figure at 369.
The researchers, writing in the British Journal of General Practice, said obesity had become the new normal in society.

More details: Parents rarely spot child obesity

Why ‘Wellbeing’ & Not ‘Well-being’?

Why ‘wellbeing‘ and not ‘well-being‘? The National Wellbeing Service is in agreement with the following statement made by the scholarly International Journal of Wellbeing:

The decision to close the hyphenated gap between ‘well’ and ‘being’ is intentionally forward looking. We know that in some disciplines (e.g. philosophy) wellbeing is still hyphenated. A cursory glance over journals from other disciplines demonstrates that many of them are already making the transition to dropping the hyphen. We expect that the hyphen will eventually disappear from all disciplines because of how the term is usually used. Both ‘well-being’ and ‘wellbeing’ most often refer to the general subject or topic of what makes a life go well for someone; they both tend to include consideration of things that makes peoples’ lives go better and worse. To avoid confusion about when ‘well-being’ means the opposite of ill-being and when it means the topic of what makes a life go well for someone, we propose the following. ‘Wellbeing’ should to refer to the topic of what makes a life go well for someone and ‘well-being’ should refer to the more specific concept – the opposite of ill-being.

The International Stress Management Association (UK) is a registered charity with a multi-disciplinary professional membership that includes the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It exists to promote sound knowledge and best practice in the prevention and reduction of human stress. It sets professional standards for the benefit of individuals and organisations using the services of its members.

• The International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) was founded in 2007 with a tri-part mission: To promote the science of positive psychology and its research-based applications. To facilitate collaboration among researchers, teachers, students, and practitioners of positive psychology around the world and across academic disciplines. To share the findings of positive psychology with the broadest possible audience.

• The European Network for Positive Psychology (ENPP) is a collective of European researchers and practitioners with shared interests in the science and practice of positive psychology. Researchers and practitioners from other disciplines like economics, sociology, philosophy or biology are also invited to participate.

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The 27th of March Marks Ireland’s First National Workplace Wellbeing Day
Ireland’s first National Workplace Wellbeing Day is an initiative of Food and Drink Industry Ireland, part of Ibec, and is being organised by the Nutrition and Health Foundation. The nationwide campaign aims to help improve employee health through promoting better nutrition and physical activity in workplaces.

Welcome to the National Wellbeing Service.

Over the coming months we intend highlighting research that focuses on enhancing wellbeing.