Keeping a focus on Women’s Mental Health is never going to be an easy task, women are the backbone of our society, yet they are continuously overlooked and over shadowed.  Mental Health is such a sliding scale and personal battle that its almost impossible to pinpoint one particular thing that exacerbates it.

Ensuring that your mental health is a priory is difficult task for women when there are so factors that could be involved such as psychological, emotional, chemical, behavioural and cognitive.  Social factors that can also impact greatly on our mental health, abuse, Anxiety, depression financial, relationship, hormonal, postpartum and postnatal depression / psychosis, ADHD, Bipolar etc.

Engaging in mental health services is never easy as the sector is underfunded and overstretched.  The community and Voluntary sector have again risen to challenge and implemented various health initiatives and programmes into their communities.  Providing services like 1-1 counselling, Mindfulness, Maternal Health, food nutrition, Money management, Strategy Focus Groups gives women a voice and a sense of involvement in both their communities and homes.  They allow women the room to breathe and find their voice in a supportive environment, and provide them with tools and coping strategies to help them manage their mental health.

Women’s health needs a very different approach than men’s and has to be seen with a gendered perspective, you simply cannot have a one size fits all attitude.  A Women’s Health Strategy needs to be at the forefront of all political parties’ manifestos, ready to be implemented and fit for purpose.