Wellbeing Lancashire seeks to make Lancashire the kindest county

Wellbeing Lancashire Community Interest Company, formed by a group of Lancashire wellbeing providers, has set an ambitious mission of making Lancashire the kindest county and what better than to launch this mission on World Kindness Day (Friday 13th November 2020).

Following its membership launch event last week, the organisation is quickly growing its provision of wellbeing services within the county. The vision is to make Wellbeing a top priority for Lancashire, by providing a framework for the delivery of wellbeing in the county.

But what does making Lancashire the kindest county actually mean?

A recent Coronavirus and the Social Impacts on Great Britain survey, found that most people think we will be united and kind following our recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic (57% and 67% respectively), but only 22% thought we would be an equal society (source: Office for National Statistics, May 2020). Wellbeing Lancashire will build on this kindness trend with a calendar of events that will support the mission ‘to make Lancashire the kindest county’ and also ‘to make 2021 the kindest year yet’.

The Wellbeing Lancashire Kindest mission will be launched this Friday with a behaviour and value attached to each letter of the acronym.

Kindness – this principle underpins everything and since Coronavirus, attitudes to kindness have increased since the pandemic hit. Findings show that the average monthly searches for ‘acts of kindness’ are 4400 in 2020, compared with 2900 in 2019. Meanwhile, the search term ‘random acts of kindness’ has more than tripled since last year. We want individuals, communities and organisations to attempt to make Lancashire an even better place by promoting good deeds and pledging acts of kindness.

Individual – essential to life is self-care and looking after your own health is critical. We want health improvement to be an essential component of our mission.

Non judgemental – we want to erase judgemental attitudes in the county towards sexual preference, religion, ageism, sexism, race and disability.

Doing the right thing – we want to create a county where integrity is a core value by all.

Empathic – Empathy allows people to build social connections with others. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, people are able to respond appropriately in social situations. Research has shown that having social connections is important for both physical and psychological well-being.

Societal – the whole mission for Wellbeing Lancashire is to create a kinder and more empathetic society where people value, support and get involved in their local communities and neighbourhoods.

Trusted – this is the value which underpins all of the above factors and is at the heart of Lancashire becoming the kindest county. It’s about erasing silo working amongst organisations, where people stop falling through the gaps and everyone works together for a more integrated approach.

Wellbeing Lancashire  aims to engage individuals, communities and businesses with its KINDEST mission and further details of these activities will follow.

For further information:

Celia GazeManaging Director, The Wellbeing Farm / Co-Founder Wellbeing [email protected]

Wellbeing Lancashire Directors include:

Cheryle Britton, Founder YOLO Wellbeing; Celia Gaze, Founder and Managing Director, The Wellbeing Farm and the North West Centre for Business & Team Building; Jason Kingston, Partner Cube Thinking; Lee Chambers, Founder, Essentialise and Emma-Louise Fusari, Founder In-House Health; Steve Smith, Founder and Chief Vision Officer for North West Employee Engagement Group.

Wellbeing Lancashire Co-Founders: Matt Gibbs, Founder, WALX Preston; Debs Brookes, Founder Roots of Life Health and Wellbeing Events; Jackie Robinson, Founder, The Balance Approach; Jo Le’Febour, Founder, Tame Your Sugar Monster; Sunny Sandwell, Founder and Managing Director, Fun at Work and Sunshine Events; Jackie Connaghton, Co-Founder, Business Health Institute

To get involved with Wellbeing Lancashire: www.wellbeinglancashire.org.uk – to join their membership email [email protected] – there are different membership levels beginning with a free membership for everyone.

World Kindness Day is celebrated annually on 13th November. On this day, participants attempt to make the world a better place by celebrating and promoting good deeds and pledging acts of kindness, either as individuals or as organisations. World Kindness Day was first launched in 1998 by The World Kindness Movement, an organisation formed at a 1997 Tokyo conference of like-minded kindness organisations from around the world. There are currently over 28 nations involved in The World Kindness Movement which is not affiliated with any religion or political movement. The mission of the World Kindness Movement and World Kindness Day is to create a kinder world by inspiring individuals and nations towards greater kindness.

In the UK, Kindness Day UK is organised by Kindness UK, a not for profit organisation. Kindness Day UK was launched on 13th November 2010, and the event has continued to grow in popularity every year with increasing numbers of individuals, schools, charities, institutions and businesses taking part.