

Volunteer Development Scotland - Scotland’s Centre for Excellence in volunteering, VDS, leads the way in informing and modernising approaches to improve the quality of the volunteering experience for the people of Scotland. Samaritans - Volunteers are at the heart of Samaritans’ 201 branches across the UK, delivering core services, running branches, fundraising and raising awareness of what they do. Take part in the first-ever nationwide kindness survey.

Kindness UK - Promoting, sharing and uniting kindness. International Voluntary Service - Links volunteers with charities and other organisations that could benefit from their time, skills and experience.
#RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS HOW TO#
Gov.uk - For general guidance about how to get involved in your community. Quickly find ways to help in your community by searching their online database of volunteering opportunities in your area. They also run the International Day of Happiness.ĭo-it - Volunteering made easy. The Foundation is the home of Mental Health Awareness Week.Īction for Happiness - Action for Happiness is a movement of people committed to building a happier society. We will drive change towards a mentally healthy society for all, and support communities, families and individuals to lead mentally healthy lives with a particular focus on those at greatest risk. The Mental Health Foundation works to prevent mental health problems. Mental Health Foundation - Our vision is of good mental health for all. Helping others doesn’t have to cost money or take a lot of time. It could start with calling a friend we haven’t spoken to in a while or donating a small amount of money monthly to a charity close to our heart and within our budget. Start small, so you don't get overwhelmed or give more than you are financially able. Leave enough time and space for you – kindness has to start with you. If we find we are giving too much of ourselves or have gone beyond our means, it’s a good time to take a step back. It’s very easy to give away all of our energy, especially if we are finding things hard ourselves and want to focus on others. It’s important to make sure we don’t overdo it. Others in your community might need some urgent help, for example.

See what you can do that others are not doing already. For example, if you want to donate to a food bank, see what they need before buying things. Kindness is something that needs to benefit both parties. Part of being kind is considering the feelings of others, so it's very important that our kindness is something that others will find helpful. While acts of kindness for other people can make us feel good, we need to also keep in mind why we’re doing it. If you've already had the experience of managing your finances, this can be a valuable skill in helping others.

With the cost of living crisis, we can make a big difference by checking on our friends and relatives to see if there's anything we can do to help. We might even have to cut back on the things we used to do. Mark Rowland, CEO of the Mental Health FoundationĪt times like this when we are learning to adapt to the stresses and strains of life. We have had to rethink the way we do lots of things, like hobbies and interests. Take a few minutes, have a read, and think about doing something kind for a friend or a stranger today. This guide is written to demonstrate the positive effect that helping others can have on your own mental health, including some suggestions that will inspire you. That can start with individual commitments to showing kindness in our words and our actions. Kindness should be built into business decisions, government policy, and other official systems in a way that supports everyone’s mental health and also reduces discrimination and inequality. With everything that's going on in the world, now is the time to help make a kinder society that improves our mental health. It can be easy to show kindness when posting online, but when it comes to reality it's harder to commit to kindness in our real-life words and actions.īy taking the time to be kind to others, we can benefit from emotional upsides. It really does make a difference, especially for people who are vulnerable or struggling. We all have so much going on in our lives - competing strains and stresses – not to mention the recent coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns. This has sometimes pushed kindness to one side, in favour of what is urgent now. We may even live longer. Kindness also helps reduce stress and improve our emotional well-being. Those of us who are kind and compassionate experience clear benefits to our well-being and happiness. What might surprise you is that this is actually backed up by research. We're all familiar with the saying “it's better to give than receive”.
