Welcome to Brighter Berkshire

Brighter Berkshire is an community led and organised year long initiative which aims to help reduce stigma about mental health & improve local opportunities.

We are now also working in partnership with BBC Radio Berkshire to help raise awareness and Berkshire Community Foundation to raise local funds for mental health.

Find out more about us

Donate to a Year of Mental Health 2017

Join our £1 Per Employee Initiative

Enter our Song Writing Competition

Make a Pledge to Brighter Berkshire

Total raised so far

Thank you to everyone who has contributed, volunteered and spread the word for Brighter Berkshire already this year

Get Involved with Brighter Berkshire

There are loads of ways to get involved

Learn More

Brighter Berkshire Events

Find an events near you

Learn More

You can now buy a t-shirt to support Brighter Berkshire

Buy here

Entries open for Workplace Mental Health Award

The new Workplace Mental Health Award sponsored by The Cardinal Clinic and The Institute of Directors, and is supported by Brighter Berkshire. Enter now!

Come along to our next event to launch Brighter Berkshire in Wokingham

Come along to our next event to launch Brighter Berkshire in Wokingham Come to this inaugural meeting with your ideas, suggestions and offers of help, to think about how we can support anyone in Wokingham who has ever been affected by mental ill health. That will be...

Fundraising Update – £62,803!

Thank you to everyone who has contributed. So far we have raised an incredible £62,803.

Have a Yellow Day!

Show your support by choosing a day in July to shine bright for Brighter Berkshire’s 2017 Year of Mental Health. Venture into your wardrobe and dig out any bright yellow item. Wear it with pride in July to college, work or to your local pub or community group.

Run 5k or 10k to support the Year of Mental Health

BCF and Brighter Berkshire have teamed up with Samaritans Bracknell, Wokingham, Ascot & Districts for their SAMARITANS Run on 1st July

Brighter Berkshire meets with Reading Youth Council

It was great to meet with Reading Youth Council who in advance of my meeting had definitely done their homework on Brighter Berkshire and gave us some great feedback. You can click read more to see it all.

Unlock Your Wellbeing completes their pledge to Brighter Berkshire!

On 10th May 2017, Anne-Marie Gawen from Unlock Your Wellbeing CIC delivered a ‘Happiness’ workshop in Bracknell, with support from Bracknell Forest Public Health as part of her pledge to Brighter Berkshire and the Year of Mental Health. The workshop went very well and you can click read more to see the feedback from the workshop.

Highlights From West Berkshire Activity Video

See our new video, showcasing just some of the amazing activity happening in West Berkshire

Pledges uploaded

We pledge to promote creativity, build relationships, and battle stigma

We pledge to promote creativity, to build relationships, and to battle stigma. We hope that the young people and adults who join us, as audience members or participants in workshops, will be enriched, inspired and invigorated.

I pledge to actively promote this fantastic initiative with a key focus on raising awareness and reducing stigma

Specifically, I pledge to lead, with the Borough’s excellent public health team, a commitment that there can be no public health without mental health across the council and ensure we have a Year of Mental Health that becomes a springboard for future action and endeavours.

We’re happy to help facilitate the outcomes you’re seeking this year

“The world needs more Change Makers like the team at Brighter Berkshire!”

We will continue to be an active core member of Brighter Berkshire and provide support for Brighter Berkshire activity

As a champion, we will continue to support the aims of Brighter Berkshire, at any meetings or events we attend where Mental Health issues are discussed or raised. Through the Healthwatch West Berkshire website, social media and all our communications we will publicise Brighter Berkshire, its events and news where possible.

We pledge to support Brighter Berkshire

Mental health needs to be spoken about and we hope that students feel more comfortable in talking about mental health with their friends and staff.

I pledge to speak up about mental health and get everyone else to do that same

Better to talk than feel alone. The world will be open enough to help others out and get others talking. Let’s get rid of the stigma that surrounds Mental Health and get it to be accepted as an illness like Physical Health

We will provide free space to help promote BB with a pop up busk over the weekend of the 6th May

Our Pledge to Brighter Berkshire is to provide FREE space to help promote BB with a pop up busk over the weekend of the 6th May.
We really believe in supporting community enterprises as the community is at the heart of what we stand for as a shopping centre and we want to help more people in understanding mental health and also showcase the great work of Brighter Berkshire.

I am holding free mental health events across Berkshire for Mental Health Awareness Week

Click to find links to these events

I want to help people with mental health problems by giving advice

I want to help people with mental health by giving advice or anything I can do to help. I have mental health myself and I feel it helps if I help others and I feel I give good advice and would do well working in this sector.

What difference do you hope to make?

It will help others to deal with their problems

I pledge to promote Brighter Berkshire during my book events

I pledge to promote Brighter Berkshire during my book events in Reading and also on my social media platform. I suffered from depression on and off and recently published a book about my experience. Generally we need to raise more awareness of mental health issues in order to do away with the stigma still attached it. I hope that there is more understanding that mental illness is an illness just like any other and what sufferers need is treatment and support instead of discrimination.