Mental Wealth Festival
The Mental Wealth Festival 2020 will take place in an online format from 5 – 10 October, coinciding with World Mental Health Day on 10 October. The theme for this year is Recovery and will offer inspiring discussions, debates and interactive workshops focusing on the journey of recovery, resilience, and healing, sharing tools and strategies to support this. In collaboration with our partners we will highlight the importance of community and support networks in this process.
We'd love to hear about your experience of the festival, tag #MentalWealth2020 when posting on social.
Please note this year's workshops are getting booked up but we still have a few spaces left.
Browse all festival sessions
This year's virtual festival includes panel discussions, podcasts, exhibitions and performances. You can also book workshops across subjects such as arts, food, humanities, languages and much more...
Panel Discussions
This year's panel discussion topics include; Dyslexia, Mental Health in the Workplace, Mental Health in Black Deaf Community, Creative Arts, and Mental Health, Learning Disability, Mental Health in Sports and more...
Workshops
Please note this year's workshops are getting booked up but we still have a few spaces left. Choose from: Book Clubs, Compassion Therapy, Art and Mindfulness, Art Therapy, Chinese Characters, Compassion Therapy Drawing, Collective Memory and Covid19, Fabric Jewellery Making, Food, Mindful Yoga in French, Philosophy, Pilates, Poetry, Politics, Sewing, Spanish, Wellbeing, Writing and more...
Performances & Podcasts
Bringing you a selection of Performances and Podcasts with thanks to our brilliant partners; Deafinitely Theatre, Headtalks and Move Beyond Words.
Mental Health Toolkit
The Mental Wealth Festival is a time to reflect on how we stay well mentally and emotionally. Key to that is building resilience to enable us to cope with whatever life throws at us. Here's some tips on how to sooth your stress and invest in your mental wealth from City Lit lead counsellor and psychotherapist Karen Dempsey.
Our Partners 2020
The British Museum
Founded in 1824, The National Gallery houses one of the greatest collections of paintings in the world, with over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 with works by artists including Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Turner.
The National Gallery
Founded in 1824, The National Gallery houses one of the greatest collections of paintings in the world, with over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 with works by artists including Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Turner.
Move Beyond Words
Beyond Words provides books and training to support people who find pictures easier to understand than words. Whether supporting somebody with a learning disability or communication difficulty, our products empower people through pictures.
Headtalks
Head Talks aims to provide you with knowledge, inspiration and a sense of community so you can create your own toolbox to fix and maintain mental health. We are all unique and find our inspiration and sense of wellbeing from many different sources.
Deafinitely Theatre
Deafinitely Theatre are the first deaf launched and deaf led professional theatre company in the uk producing quality bilingual theatre in british sign language and spoken english.
Mad World
MAD World stands for Make A Difference. Taking place on 8 October, just before World Mental Health Day, the MAD World Summit is the global go-to online event for employers who want to make a difference to workplace culture, mental health and wellbeing.
South London and Maudsley & Bethlem Hospital
Bethlem Hospital's aim is to be a leader in improving health and wellbeing – locally, nationally and globally. There are very few organisations in the world that have such wide-ranging capabilities working with mental illness.
Brixton Finishing School
Brixton Finishing School creates award-winning programmes that help young people break into the creative, advertising, and marketing industries.
RAD
Founded in 1841, the Royal Association for Deaf people (RAD) provides services to Deaf people in their first language, usually British Sign Language (BSL) and supports mainstream providers to be more accessible to Deaf people.
Thrive London
Thrive LDN is a citywide movement to improve the mental health and wellbeing of all Londoners. It is supported by the Mayor of London and led by the London Health Board partners.
Background
City Lit is the leading adult education college in Europe. We welcome over 32,000 students every year, offering over 6,000 courses and our work helps Londoners from every walk of life. In particular, we provide unique educational opportunities for: the Deaf and hard of hearing communities; support for adult stammerers; adults with severe learning difficulties; and outreach for disadvantaged communities across the Capital. Founded in 1919, City Lit has adapted and innovated to meet London’s changing needs, providing more than just adult education courses – we help improve confidence; combat loneliness and isolation; develop new skills to improve employability; retool those ready for a career change; help individuals manage their mental health difficulties; and generally make London a better place.
As part of our activity, we strongly advocate for the benefits of lifelong learning as a way to support and promote positive mental health and well-being through the Mental Wealth Festival.
The Mental Wealth Festival is a week of events and experiences which celebrate and promote activities, projects, ideas and tools which restore, support and enhance positive mental health. The Festival aims to highlight the way mental health issues impact on so many aspects of daily life, and how the arts, politics, culture, faith and the media can support our ‘mental wealth’. We bring together professionals and key stakeholders to discuss mental health issues, providing a forum for informative, challenging and inspiring discussions and workshops exploring mental health issues.
Whilst not shying away from addressing the problems in society that contribute to mental ill health, the festival focusses on the solutions and positive outcomes of mental wellbeing. It also provides an open forum for debate and discussion and allows people to speak freely about their own experiences of mental health and wellbeing. We provide access across the community to share knowledge and good practice to focus on mental health and wellbeing, creating a community that are focused on staying well.
We have previously welcomed high profile keynotes to talk about their own personal mental wealth including; Ruby Wax, Alastair Campbell, Hugh Grant, Grayson Perry, Johnny Benjamin MBE, Bryony Gordon, Ed Balls and Prof. Paul Dolan of the LSE. We are proud to have been supported by MIND, Rethink and Samaritans.
Keep up-to-date
To receive information for the 2020 Mental Wealth Festival including when the programme and boookings are live please sign up to our mailing list here >
Festival archive
View previous Mental Wealth Festivals >
Your feedback
At the Mental Wealth Festival 2019 we asked our visitors;
What one thing will you take away from your session at the Mental Wealth Festival 2019?
- The importance of there being peer support and and fact there is a shortage of BAME counsellors and what I can do about mental health.
- To do more meditation, thoughtfulness and being open.
- As a therapist I will create more workshops for men, talking therapies at local community centres
- Sandra Kerr's contribution to the BAME panel discussion and seeing a black woman influencing at that level
- Awareness and to hear the panel speak so authentically. Beautiful.
- Virtuous circle instead of vicious circle
- Openness and vulnerability
- Better able to support BAME people in my network after this event
- Allowing my inner child to come out
- I want to do more sessions on mindfulness and art
- Good to see that people value people with a mental health problem
- Wrote one sentence in a daily journal- very doable
- Slowing down and noticing trees
- Insightful and interesting, I learnt a lot and it was a very supportive group where I felt comfortable to ask questions
- Sharing fears with others is good
- Very helpful to see what it is I am doing and how to change it. I feel positive and very well
- Breathing techniques for confidence
Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback on the event and tips for future festivals.