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Seeking Better Infant Mental Health
The Spark joined like-minded organisations last month to highlight the field of infant mental health during the inaugural Infant Mental Health Awareness Week (6-10 June 2016). The week – created by the Parent Infant Partnership UK (PIPUK) – was hugely successful and The Spark’s National Development Director, Marion Laird looks back on the week and…
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Literally Searching for Answers
Every day we pose thousands of difficult questions about many of life’s most challenging issues. But in 21st-century society, we do not put them to close friends, scientists, professional counsellors or medical professionals. We put them to Google. That’s right – we ask the world’s most famous and dominant search engine how to sort out…
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The Taboo of Men’s Mental Health
Great strides have been made in recent years in the promotion and awareness of men’s physical health and wellbeing. Multiple forms of cancer and the likes of heart and lung disease amongst men have started to lose their taboo status. Consequently, the discussion of such topics is more commonplace. Work is still to be done…
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When Football Takes Over
When it comes to the start of a new football season, transfer deadline day or a major championships (usually without Scotland) fans of the ‘beautiful game’ will be glued to TV screens and stadium terraces. For all the excitement and spectacle a season or tournament offers, couples across the country will be split as one…
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What Does Debt Do to Relationships?
These days it is easy to become immune to the scale of the statistics quoted by news programmes, websites and in the media. Those concerning debt are a prime example. Consider this: according to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in 2015 1.25m adults and 312,000 children were destitute in the UK. That is 1.56m…
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Infant Mental Health & Our Earliest Relationships
Most mental health work in the UK focuses on reacting to problems once they have arisen. By contrast infant mental health initiatives look at the foundations of our relationships – our earliest years of infancy. By taking a ‘best start’ in life philosophy, it is possible to prevent mental health issues arising later in life…
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Permission Granted: Sex Outside Marriage
It proved to be an explosive and controversial statement. Loose Women presenter Saira Khan confessed on air to telling her husband she is not interested in sex and that he should go to someone else for it. On social media the idea of sex outside marriage appeared to strike a chord as many women expressed…
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Counselling from the Perspective of a Counsellor
The Spark counsellor Cathie lifts the lid in this blog on what counselling is like from her perspective as a counsellor. Many people may avoid counselling because of a lack of understanding and information on what it is and what it can help them achieve. In this blog Cathie looks at some common misconceptions about…
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