Read Manchester and Manchester Libraries marked World Mental Health Day (on 10th October) with a series of Take 10 events across the week. World Mental Health Day is celebrated every year on 10 October, and the day is about raising awareness of the importance of mental health and enabling discussions around the topic. The theme for this year is mental health in the workplace. To mark the day, we visited two hospitals across the week to distribute free new books to staff and patients and held conversations about how reading supports mental wellbeing.
Read Manchester promotes the #Take10ToRead campaign to encourage people to read for at least ten minutes a day to tie into mental wellbeing, as reading has proven benefits around relaxation, wellbeing and empathy.
Read Manchester promotes the #Take10ToRead campaign to encourage people to read for at least ten minutes a day to tie into mental wellbeing, as reading has proven benefits around relaxation, wellbeing and empathy.
On 8 October the Read Manchester and Libraries team along with our literacy champions visited the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, working together with the charity Read for Good and their storyteller. We gave out almost 1000 books to children and parents/carers attending the hospital, as well as giving books to children on the wards. Children and adults were able to choose from a variety of books to keep, and some great conversations were sparked. Comments included:
‘This service would be perfect for our pre-op team! Our children are often scared and this (reading) will be a welcome distraction. A wonderful idea and so, so kind’ – Pre-op nurse
‘I want my son to read for just 10 minutes a day, this is the perfect thing to encourage him.’ a parent talking about the Take 10 bookmarks.
On 10 October we visited The Christie hospital with 1,500 brand new books for adults and gave these out to staff and patients. A further 300 books went to the three satellite sites as well as additional books for four of the wards at the hospital. We included a variety of both fiction and non-fiction books and talked to people about their reading choices and how to find a book they would love. We were keen that staff would also benefit from the campaign and that we could support mental health in the workplace. Again, comments were positive:
‘As a healthcare worker it was lovely to get a nice book to read, disconnect from work and come back stronger for another shift. Keep up the good work!’
‘Events like these encourage people to get away from their desks and mix with others at work. It encourages people to get into reading who might not have thought of it.’
‘Thank you so much for doing this, it makes a real difference to our patients coming for appointments’ – Charge Nurse at the Christie
In addition to this, schools signed up for three online author visits hosted by the National Literacy Trust, our Read Manchester partner with Manchester City Council. Nearly 2,700 Manchester school pupils watched Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet (Supertato), Natalie Denny (Keisha Jones books) and A. F. Steadman (Skandar books) online, talking about their books and characters. Read Manchester also gifted mini collections of ten books to support Take 10 to primary schools; these included inspirational books to help children find resilience and happiness in everyday life.
We also asked local businesses and community groups to sign up to the Take 10 pledge and encourage reading in the workplace, offering them online resources to support this.
Take 10 continues to be one of the focal points of Read Manchester, encouraging reading for pleasure and wellbeing across the city.