The Brierley Hill shopping centre has partnered with mental health foundation, Blurt, to provide advice to customers and staff on managing their mental wellbeing over Christmas.

Blurt’s guide for dealing with stress, loneliness and grief at Christmas will be handed out from customer service desks at intu’s 14 UK shopping centres and distributed to intu staff during December. It will also direct customers and staff to Blurt’s website where they can seek more information. Hayley Dann from Blurt said:

“If ever there was a polarising time of year, it’s now. The festive season can be lovely, exciting, heartwarming and fun. It can also be incredibly stressful, lonely, claustrophobic and difficult to cope with.

“We’re delighted to be partnering with intu on this seasonal guide and hope it will reach those who need it most to help them realise it’s ok to not be ok. There’s a tonne of resources for people to access for free on our website which we hope will help people over the next few weeks.” 

intu and Blurt began working together this autumn to run mental health drop-in sessions for students at nine of the brand's student shopping nights, including intu Merry Hill’s, at the start of the academic year, reaching thousands of young people who visited the events. Their partnership is also being extended to specialist training designed to support the mental health and wellbeing of intu’s staff and customers. Alexander Nicoll, corporate responsibility director at intu, said:

“Christmas is a wonderful time of year for many different reasons but it can be difficult for some and also extremely tough on a lot of people’s mental wellbeing.

"More than a million shoppers pass through our doors every day of the festive period so intu is well placed to work with Blurt and reach out to a high volume of people with some supportive advice at this critical time.

"The message we want to get across is that we understand that Christmas can be difficult and to take some time for yourself or seek the support of organisations like Blurt if you need it.”

For more information on Blurt, visit blurtitout.org.