Mental Health Month occurs each year in October and encompasses World Mental Health Day on Tuesday 10 October 2023.

Mental Health Month is an opportunity to raise community awareness and understanding of mental health, reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with mental health conditions, and promote positive mental health and wellbeing. 

Basketball ACT in partnership with our Mental Health Partner, Black Dog Institute, wants everyone in our community to get involved, by taking steps to maintain and boost their own mental wellbeing, build networks, and support others.

Black Dog Institute research shows that 1 in 5 Australians experience a mental illness each year, and 60% of those people living with mental illness will not seek help.

One of the easiest ways to boost your own mental health is exercise, and one of the best ways to support the important research that Black Dog Institute undertakes is to go walking.

One Foot Forward, is an annual fundraiser that helps put ground-breaking new mental health treatment, education and digital services into the hands of the people who need them most.

All you need to do is register as an individual, group, club or workplace and go walking. In 2022, over 28,000 people walked in solidarity during October to raise $2.8m for the research of Black Dog Institute.

So sign up for One Foot Forward in 2023, and walk, run or roll and log your kms throughout October for Mental Health Month.

You can find out further details about Black Dog Institute’s One Foot Forward including registration details, by clicking below:

Black Dog Institute’s One Foot Forward