Liverpool FC supports 'Heads Up Weekends' campaign
Liverpool FC supports Heads Up Weekends, a campaign aimed at kicking off a conversation around mental health.
For two weekends in February, every football team from across the Premier League, Football League, National League, Women’s Super League, Women’s Championship and Women’s National League will dedicate their matches to Heads Up, a partnership between The FA and Heads Together.
Spearheaded by HRH The Duke of Cambridge, the season-long Heads Up campaign aims to harness the influence and popularity of football to normalise the conversation around mental health, working closely with charity partners Mind, CALM and Sporting Chance.
The Heads Up Weekends will highlight the power of talking as a way to support one another and dispel stigma, with activity planned at fixtures across the men’s and women’s football calendar.
Over February 8-9 and 14-17, clubs of all levels will feature Heads Up branding across stadiums, programmes and player kit, in a major unifying moment that aims to get the nation talking about mental health. Liverpool travel to Norwich City on Saturday February 15 and fans are encouraged to join the conversation using the hashtags #KickOffAConversation and #HeadsUp.
It follows the results of a survey which showed that while football is the number one topic of conversation (75 per cent) between fans and their friends, only 34 per cent of fans regularly talk about mental health with their friends.
In January, Heads Up teamed up with PHE’s Every Mind Matters in a historic first to delay all matches in the FA Cup third round by 60 seconds to encourage fans to ‘take a minute’ to start looking after their mental health.
Find out more and get tips from Heads Up’s charity partners (Mind, CALM, Sporting Chance and Heads Together) at www.headstogether.org.uk/Heads-Up.
Those needing immediate support can also text ‘HeadsUp’ to 85258 to connect with a trained crisis volunteer, a service run by ‘Shout’ and powered by Crisis Text Line, which is available 24/7 and free to text from most mobile networks.