Icebreaker and Mental Health Swims
09.11.2023
This year, we are working with mental health peer support community, Mental Health Swims, to help shape our Icebreaker event. Icebreaker is a cold-water fundraising event and has been a staple of the Crisis calendar for 11 years. We know that many people experience benefits from cold-water therapy, both physical and mental.
Learn more about this fantastic community group:
Visit the Mental Health Swims website
What is Mental Health Swims?
"Our mission is to create safe and welcoming spaces for people who want to improve their mental health and make connections in their community through swimming. Since 2019 we have grown to have around 140 outdoor swim locations across the UK and beyond."
What are the aims of Mental Health Swims?
"One of our aims is for mental health issues to be talked about more openly and to build empathy and understanding around mental health within communities so that people never feel alienated or alone.
We focus on accepting people as they are today with no expectation for transformation. It’s not that our participants don’t experience amazing benefits to their wellbeing but we want to foster an environment where no one feels pressure to be anything but themselves. We want to make it as easy as possible for people living with mental illness to join in, to feel accepted and included and ultimately fight mental illness stigma by doing this."
Tell us more about your meet ups and volunteers.
"We have a unique offering because we are led by lived experience. All our volunteers and our team have lived experience of mental health challenges either personally or through supporting someone close to them.
Mental Health Swims hosts have wholeheartedly embraced their roles, yet each swim meet is unique, allowing hosts to feel empowered and to truly embrace who they are and build their own communities. Some groups are small and intimate and host a monthly dip, others are large and host dips every week. We are proud to have created a mental health support community that is welcoming to everyone."
