Reflecting on Exeter’s BIGGEST Community Mental Health Day

Devon Mental Health Alliance were very pleased to be a part of ‘Exeter's Biggest Community Mental Health Day’ at The Corn Exchange on Monday 1st June. Organised by one of our partner organisations, CoLab, ‘Exeter's Biggest Community Mental Health Day’ was designed to help people who are struggling with their mental health to find local support for what matters to them most.

The DMHA’s Community Mental Health Development Lead for Eastern Devon, Matt Merriam, spoke about his experience of the day: “DMHA was one of around 35 different organisations available for people to speak to about the challenges they are facing and how we may each be able to help. Over the course of the day we spoke to dozens of people, especially about our Exeter drop-in and our online peer support group for those who are neurodivergent.”

Matt continued: “Mental health is an often complex and nuanced area of our lives. It is impacted by our relationships, the environments we live in, our past, the things causing us stress, our physical health, and so much more. Days like this provide an opportunity for people to get support in a number of parts of their lives to hopefully reduce the pressures from the things impacting their mental health.”

The DMHA’s Co-production Lead, Cindy Dale, was also in attendance and described the warm community spirit the event created. Cindy was delighted to hear from service users, including one attendee who wished to share how grateful she was for Devon Mental Health Alliance’s support, after being unable to leave her home for 2 years. She said, ‘Now I get out. Now I have friends. Now I am on the board of one of the groups!’ She also praised the ease of the Learning Network Calendar, explaining, ‘The DMHA website is easy to use. The learning calendar is so easy to access. I just click on the day, and I see the groups that are on. The groups have changed my life!’

We are overjoyed to hear such positive feedback and strive to continue growing the Alliance to better mental health in Devon. We are proud to have partners such as Co-Lab who support their communities to access wellbeing support through events such as this.

We are looking forward to more of these events in the future and doing our part to help those in Devon find the support they really need.