Promoting mental health through leisure

Leisure understood as doing activities that are carried out in our free time from daily obligations can have a positive impact on our mental health. Some of the mental health benefits that we could detect are improved mood and a greater sense of well-being.

So, if we claim that leisure can be an effective way to take care of our mental health, we can say that leisure leaders have an essential role. But, if I am a leisure leader, what can I do to promote the mental health of the children and young people I accompany?

Very often, the lack of specific training in mental health makes us feel poorly equipped with the tools to accompany children and young people with mental health problems. In this article we explain how we can create inclusive, empathetic and respectful spaces for mental health through leisure and the opportunities that it gives us.

Detect

Some of the actions that seek to identify discomforts in order to respond to them.

• We welcome discomfort. Our task is not to diagnose but to perceive. Don't put a name to it: listen, observe and welcome. Putting a name and pointing out the difference does not usually help to get through moments of discomfort, but quite the opposite, it stigmatizes and conditions receiving support.
• We create spaces where we can talk about discomfort. The pace of leisure spaces tends to be fast and dynamic. Don't forget to establish care spaces, more intimate and with a slower pace, where we can ask ourselves "how are we doing?", "how are we coping with the task?", ... Discomfort is not visible to the naked eye, therefore, if we do not promote these spaces, they will often go unnoticed. For these spaces to be effective, we will need to coexist in a climate of respect and trust that allows us to make the most of them.
• We know the child or young person. In order to identify the discomforts of the children and young people we accompany, we need to know them deeply, know what is common in the child or young person and what is not, since not all unusual ways of doing, feeling, thinking and acting are mental health problems. To detect effectively, it will be necessary to pay attention to the changes in the child or young person's behavior, thinking and emotionality in particular, respecting their way of living in the world prior to these. If in doubt, we can ask the child or young person what they think has changed in them and if they have detected it in the same way.
• We share moments with the child or young person. Very often it is difficult to identify if the child or young person is living with discomfort and if they need support in this aspect. Sharing views with other people in the support group (family, educators, specialists, friends, etc.) of the child or young person will help us to detect more effectively what situation they are living with. Sometimes it is hard to believe, but we are an important part of the lives of these children and young people!

Some examples of practices to detect discomfort are: spaces to talk about how the group is doing before starting activities, having individual monitoring of all children and young people and talking about it during team meetings and having spaces for communication with support agents (family meetings, with educational centers, etc.).

Accompany

When we talk about supporting, we are talking about all the actions that aim to welcome the discomfort of children and young people and ensure that they receive adequate support for their discomfort. Here are some examples:

• We validate the feelings and emotions of the child and young person. When living with discomfort, many emotions can be experienced and all are legitimate. We must show that we accept and welcome all the emotions of the child or young person and that we do not judge their way of feeling the situation and do not change the subject or ignore what they are explaining.
• We give an appropriate response: When we know that a child or young person is experiencing discomfort, it usually surprises us and this leads us to give an exaggerated response to their discomfort. We must ensure that we provide adequate support for this discomfort, far from welfareism and adultocentrism that aims to give an immediate, generalized response and that does not encourage children and young people to be the protagonists of their life journey.
• We guarantee an intimate space. When accompanying someone in discomfort, many doubts, concerns, memories and emotions can arise. We guarantee that if the person needs it, we can offer an intimate and individualized space where we can accompany them in a respectful way.
• We respect the rhythm. To accompany effectively, we must respect the person's rhythms, which are often very different from ours. Accompany at their pace, without urging or creating obstacles.
• We offer time and space. Not every time the person living with discomfort will need the same support. They may need a hug, sharing silence, a long conversation or accompanying them to meet a professional. Often, just being present is enough. We show our willingness to share space and time with them if they need it and we ensure that these times and spaces are available.
• Let's ask: If you don't know how to accompany, what to do so that the person receives the support they need to get through the discomfort, let's ask them! We tend to believe that the person can't tell us what they need, but they are the ones who know themselves best, so no one better than them can give us clues about what they need and what they don't.
• Let's say goodbye to stigma. Believing that you need to have specific knowledge to be with a person who is feeling unwell is a myth that comes from stigma. Stigmas are usually negative characteristics that people are described with because they are part of a group. For example, a stigma that is placed on people with a mental health problem is that they are fragile or dangerous. People who live with a diagnosis are no different from any other person. So you need to support them in the same way: with empathy and respect. Don't let stigmas paralyze you!
• Let's talk about it before moments of crisis . We are used to looking for answers and support for discomfort when it is present, but one of the ways that will help us effectively accompany discomfort is to talk about it before it is present. Ask yourself, for example, when you are sad, what helps you?
• Our work is important. We usually believe that our work as leisure leaders is not important enough or long enough to produce change. But that is not the case: great transformations arise from small actions.
• We offer external support. If the person feels they need external support, we help them find it.

Some examples of practices to accompany discomfort and that go along this line would be: carrying out activities to identify strategies that make us feel well-being and that are useful for moving through discomfort when it appears, knowing what stigmas are and how to break them and guaranteeing physical and temporary spaces available to accompany us if necessary.

Prevent

Some of the actions aimed at reducing the risk of discomfort may be the following:

• Let's talk about mental health. Talking about mental health is essential to prevent discomfort. Knowing what it is, what influences it, how it changes and sharing tools for collective mental health care to prevent its occurrence.
• We reduce risk factors. Avoiding or reducing the factors that increase the risk of living with discomfort is very important. Some examples would be reducing the adverse situations we live with, such as toxic consumption, screen abuse, etc.
• We have an intersectional perspective. To effectively prevent the appearance of discomfort, it is important to know that not everyone has the same predisposition and that this is greatly influenced by the axes of oppression that run through us. That is, women, people from the LGTBIQ+ community, migrants, children, young people or the elderly, ... live with a different risk than other groups.
• We create prevention and approach protocols. Having protocols to address and prevent risky situations such as sexual abuse, gender-based violence, harassment, etc. will help us reduce the discomfort perceived by the person and therefore the subsequent suffering.

Some examples of interesting actions along these lines would be: workshops on conflict resolution, zero-tolerance policies towards harassment and spaces for debate/reflection on mental health.

Promote

To promote mental health, it will be necessary to carry out actions aimed at creating empathetic and respectful spaces that promote the well-being of children and young people.

• We facilitate protective factors. Promoting cohesion, a sense of belonging, trust, effective communication, self-esteem, etc. through leisure activities will help us create healthier spaces.
• We make children participants in the processes. Ensure that all children and young people feel an active part of the care processes, understanding that we are all responsible for the well-being of the group and, therefore, we all have something to do.
• We create inclusive spaces. We must ensure that physical and mental diversity is respected and welcomed in all spaces. We are all unique and that is something to celebrate!
• We strengthen healthy bonds. Encouraging healthy bonds will promote mental health, as people will feel that they have a broad and strong support network that will make it easier for them to ask for help if they need it.
• We incorporate the mental health perspective into the activities. Leisure is a very useful tool to achieve countless goals. We can also use it to talk about mental health and/or some of the concepts that make it up (emotions, cognitive stimulation, ...).

Some examples that help promote mental health in leisure spaces are: holding an evening on emotions, a cognitive stimulation gymkhana, an animation theme on the importance of welcoming diversity, etc.

Collectivize discomforts

This section would include all actions that seek to transform mental health care into something collective.

• We create spaces to talk about our discomforts. It is necessary to create formal and informal spaces where we can ask ourselves how we are and express our discomforts.
• We facilitate the strengthening of the support network. One of the fundamental tasks is to ensure that all children and young people have a strong, available and safe support network.
• We give voice to the grievances of children and young people. It is necessary to facilitate or be a spokesperson for the grievances of children and young people in order to ensure and expand the response to them.
• We all have a lot to do . Put on the table the importance of collectivizing care processes and help us understand that we are all co-responsible for the well-being of others and that, therefore, we always have something to do.
• We share resources. It can be very useful to create spaces where we can share interesting resources to work on some aspects through leisure. We often think that we have few resources, but when we start sharing them, they multiply.

Some examples of activities that allow us to collectivize discomfort are: spaces for co-creating collective responses to discomfort, a resource bank for working with emotions, ice-breaking games where people ask "how are you?" and dynamics to strengthen support networks.

Take care of ourselves

To take care of the mental health of others, we must take care of our own. Some actions to do this are:

• We promote mental hygiene. Establish healthy routines and dynamics that allow us to rest and disconnect from tasks, as well as take better care of ourselves (rest, healthy eating, digital disconnection, etc.).
• We promote spaces of care. Promoting spaces focused on the care of leisure referents is an action that can allow us to take better care of the mental health of children and young people.
• We know our limits and those of our work. The time, tools and skills we have with children and young people are not enough to observe and listen to everything we would like. Avoid getting caught up in it, any information you can extract and intervention you can make will be valuable. Therefore, we also need to be aware of the limits of our work, respect them and make them a pedagogy
• We promote a healthy environment. Facilitating that leisure spaces are empathetic and respectful can help us intervene better with children and young people.
• We delegate if necessary. If in any situation, accompanying a child or young person, we feel that we cannot support the situation and our care work, we ask for help and delegate the responsibility for it to someone who is cognitively, emotionally and physically prepared to take it on.
• We generate internal resources to support care. An example would be to create spaces for training, advice, supervision, etc. that allow us to problematize how we are intervening and seek healthier and more effective alternatives.

An example would be to hold a meeting of references where activities and dynamics are carried out that aim to take care of ourselves, establish a time limit for meetings in order to guarantee rest and have external advice for complex cases.

Through these 6 steps we can achieve healthy leisure spaces where children and young people take care of their mental health collectively.