Mental Health Awareness Week 2025 in Parliament

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Parliament is proud to support Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW), running from 12 – 18 May 2025. MHAW is an opportunity to raise awareness of mental health and share ways to support good mental health for all.  This year, the theme for MHAW set by the Mental Health Foundation is Community.

There is something for everyone this Mental Health Awareness Week, with events and resources open to Members and Members’ staff taking place throughout the week. Join us to celebrate the power and importance of community in supporting mental health this MHAW.

What’s On

  • Attend a special programme of talks, training workshops and networking sessions
  • Visit the MHAW stall in Portcullis House on 13 May
  • Networking events for Members’ staff in-person (13 May) and online (15 May)
  • Explore a collection of on-demand resources including pre-recorded webinars, interactive notice boards, and information about health and wellbeing services available to you.

The programme of events and training courses taking place throughout Mental Health Awareness Week is available to book here on ACT. 

Find out more and stay up to date on Parlinet: ParliNet | Mental Health Awareness Week 2025

MP Office Manual

Setting up your office
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Between June 2023 to June 2024 a cross-party group of civic technologists worked together to create the MP Office Manual. They are all keen to see MPs with well run offices contributing to a flourishing democracy in the UK.

You can read it at mpofficemanual.uk

The proposals in the manual come from in-depth interviews with current and former MPs office staff and expert advice from 30+ practitioners, allied with a survey of staff members and a review of current literature including all past guides and examples found on w4mp, Hansard Society, and Parliament.

We hope you find it useful – and if you have any suggestions for improving it please get in touch.

Run For Jo – 22 June 2025

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The Run for Jo is part of the Great Get Together weekend and is all about bringing people together, there will be food, music, stalls and lots of fun! It is all about bringing people together and that means community, friends and family. Children are welcome on both the distances and the 2.5km fun run is ideal for all the family- even the dog can take part!

This year it is on the 22 June, which would have been Jo’s 51st birthday. The run itself is at Oakwell Hall, Birstall, however you can also sign up to do a virtual 10k challenge if Yorkshire is too far to travel.

Those of us who did it last year found it was a great way to get motivated to start running and get fit and active – it was an amazing community event and a brilliant way to celebrate Jo’s legacy. We are trying to make this year bigger and better than ever – so if you want to get involved in any way, please drop me a message 😊 or sign up here:

2.5km Fun Run🏃‍♀
https://racebest.com/races/funrunforjo2025
6.5km Challenge 🏃‍♀
https://racebest.com/races/runforjo2025

Where: Oakwell Hall and Country Park, Birstall
When: 9am – 3pm 22nd June 2025
What: 6.5km Challenge, 2.5km Fun Run or Virtual 10km!

Access to cash and banking hubs

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House of Commons Library Talk

Session outline

Cash access, use and acceptance are declining. Recent legislation has tried to address the issues this causes for people reliant on cash. This talk will outline the law in this area and how caseworkers can help constituents with cash access requests.

Time: 10:30 – 11:30
Date: 24 April 2025
Location: Online
Registration: https://parliament.learningpool.com/mod/facetoface/view.php?id=7498

Volunteers wanted to pilot constituency engagement tracking tool

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Members’ staff wanted to test the Participation Services Dashboard.

The Participation team is looking for Members’ staff to take part in a pilot study testing the Participation Services Dashboard, a tool to give you quick and easy insights into how your constituents are engaging with services offered by the Participation team. This includes their involvement in education programmes, tours of Parliament and sign-ups for UK Parliament Week.

Volunteers would need to attend three 30-minute online meetings from early June to mid-July – a range of times will be offered to best fit your diary.

For more information or to register your interest, please visit Parlinet or email [email protected]

Practical recommendations for supporting staff in a political office

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By Jennifer Lees-Marshment
Professor of Political Management and Marketing at The University of Dundee

Wednesday April 2nd at 2pm

This workshop will present practical recommendations for supporting staff in political offices. These were created by interviewing political advisors who worked for Prime Ministers, Ministers and MPs in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand about what they had found worked best within the realities of politics and government.

Participants will also get the opportunity to reflect on which recommendations they might consider implementing, and to share any additional practices they have found useful.

This will be of interest to existing and prospective staffers and special advisers, and those already support and manage colleagues, teams or offices or aspire to in the future.

Brief author intro
Jennifer Lees-Marshment is Professor of Political Marketing and Management at The University of Dundee and interviewed over 65 advisors who worked for Prime Ministers, Ministers and MPs in the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada to identify over 50 best practice recommendations for improving the support and management of political staffers.

To receive the Teams link to this session, please email [email protected]