By Casey Neill
Dandenong Park will host a fun festival with health and well-being at its heart.
Spring Into Wellness will mark both Mental Health Week and Carers Week with an animal farm, jumping castle, musicians, performers, art and craft activities, community service organisation stalls, and more.
Mental health support service Ermha is presenting the free community event with South East Metropolitan Primary Health Network (SEMPHN) and Mind Australia.
Bernard Robinson has been chipping in ideas and handing out posters, and will volunteer on the day.
“I’ve been with Ermha for six years in different programs,” he said.
“For the last year, I’ve been a volunteer and it’s been really instrumental in my recovery.”
Mr Robinson said the event was a fun way to let the community know what support was available.
“You can’t beat a spring festival. It’s that time of year, we all love it,” he said.
“I know for myself it took me a long time to accept that I had a mental illness because of the embarrassment and shame and all that.
“Until you take that first step and accept that you do have a mental illness, well you don’t really begin the road to recovery.”
Ermha’s Shamus Goble said the event would be fun, despite its serious message.
“I’m looking forward to there being a real sort of energy around the event, a lot of activities going on,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how the members of the community interact with this event.
“If they feel that they are looking for some sort of support with well-being or mental health issues, I hope that they can walk away with some information that may help them take steps towards accessing that support.”
Mr Goble said the event was unique in that it would celebrate Mental Health Week and Carers Week simultaneously.
“We’ll celebrate the interdependence of the mental health and carers weeks,” he said.
“We’re also staging it on a weekend. We’re trying something different with the potential for the wider community to attend, and because there’s a lot of support services that aren’t usually available on weekends.”
He said the many activities would promote wellness “within ourselves and others”.
“Doing things for our general physical and mental well-being are important and to some degree provide, potentially, some protection against mental or physical illness,” he said.
“Mental health issues incorporate a really broad spectrum of potential disturbances or disruptions to our mental well-being.
“Mental health is a community responsibility and it affects the whole community.”
Spring Into Wellness will be held at Dandenong Park, Pultney Street, Dandenong, from 10am to 3pm on Sunday 16 October.
