On Wednesday Night Will Hondermarck and Daniel Jinadu joined us at Reds in the Community to take part in our male Mental Health session #TeamTalk.

Our TeamTalk session is run by our Health and Wellbeing Officer Sean Margison. The programme is designed to support local men’s mental wellbeing.

Team Talk aims to enable men to access and offer peer support, share experiences, tips and coping mechanisms whilst also having the opportunity to socialise and connect. 

The players took part in the 1.5-hour session joining in with table tennis, pool and Fifa activities. 

Our Health and Wellbeing officer Sean said: Team Talk funded by Barnsley Council, is designed to support the mental wellbeing of men in Barnsley and the surrounding areas by getting them talking and socialising with others in a safe environment.

We like to keep the sessions as informal as possible as the participants like this approach. It has been really rewarding to see how the sessions have helped improve the mens mental health. I would like to thank Will and Daniel for not only supporting the session but for engaging so well with the group in the conversation, games and laughter’

Our Team Talk sessions are open to all men and the relaxed informal environment allows people to drop in and out of the sessions, attending when they need it the most.

The sessions also allow men to access a separate ‘Chat Room’ where they can engage with staff members and partners in a 1-1 discussion if they wish.

One of our participants Kev added: ‘I started coming to these sessions about 5-6 weeks ago after being diagnosed with depression following the death of my dad last year. I can honestly say hand on heart the way the staff have helped me is out of this world. For me personally this organisation…I couldn’t ask for anything better and I’ll keep coming here for as long as the sessions run as I have seen a change in myself from day one to now’ 

We have a number of supportive partners engaging with us throughout the programme and this allows us to be able to signpost participants to further support or interventions where necessary.

Sessions continue to run every Wednesday evening 6pm to 7:30pm at the Oakwell Indoor Centre.