PANDAS Foundation Awareness Week 2022, 10-15th October

#PAW22 took place between 10th – 15th October 2022 this year, and we were delighted with the interaction, engagement and awareness that the week brought for the charity. This year’s theme was EARLY INTERVENTION SAVES LIVES. The aim of the week was to highlight how absolutely vital it is that people receive mental health support as early as possible. This was especially in light of the survey we undertook earlier this year into NHS waiting times for receiving perinatal mental health support and treatment, which very much highlighted this. 

 During the week many people shared their own posts highlighting #EarlyInterventionSavesLives. We were so pleased that so many engaged, including many high profile people, as well as general members of the public and our supporters. 

 Many posts and reels were viewed as many as 35,000 times and we were so pleased to grow our following on Instagram by nearly 4000 in one week, which is a record! We are so pleased that so many resonated with the campaign, and are now aware of our services.

 The impact of the week was absolutely reflected in the surge in demand of our services. The month of PAW (October) saw the biggest number of calls, emails and texts of the year so far.

 The number of people using our email support service grew by 65% from September following our awareness week, and we also had our highest volume of calls to our helpline in 6 months and also to the text service, surpassed only by May, when we had a lot of press following our campaign about NHS Waiting times and the launch of our survey results.

We’d like to thank every single person who engaged, supported and took part in the campaign.