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Your health and wellbeing

  • Belfast Health Development Unit

    The Belfast Health Development Unit (BHDU) was established in 2010 and comprises staff from Belfast City Council, Public Health Agency and Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. BHDU's aim is to support collaborative approaches to address health inequalities in Belfast.

    Currently BHDU staff work on these priority areas:

    • Active Belfast
    • Mental health and emotional wellbeing
    • Age Friendly Belfast

    For more information, email [email protected] or go to Making life better together (link opens in new window).

  • Active Belfast

    The aim of Active Belfast is to encourage people to be more active and healthier. This work is led by the Active Belfast partnership, which includes a wide range of partners and stakeholders from:

    • statutory
    • community, and
    • voluntary sectors. 

    You can find more information at Active Belfast - Making Life Better Together (link opens in new window).

  • Mental health and emotional wellbeing

    Take 5

    One of the unit's initiatives is the development of Take 5 steps to wellbeing.

    Evidence suggests there are five steps we should all take to help improve our mental health and wellbeing. These are:

    1. Connect.
    2. Keep learning.
    3. Be active.
    4. Take notice.
    5. Give.

    These steps encourage us to think about our daily routines and take part in the five activities to support better health and wellbeing.

    Even if these are behaviours you already follow, the Take 5 steps to wellbeing is about increasing the time we spend doing them.

    You can download a copy of the Take 5 guide from the Public Health Agency's website (opens in new window). You can find more information at Minding Your Head (link opens in new window).

    Our benches

    We have installed 16 benches with special QR codes in Belfast parks to encourage users to Take 5 and access information to look after their emotional wellbeing.

    The Take 5 benches have been installed in some of our parks in Belfast.

  • Lifelong Learning

    In 2018, Belfast joined the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities.

    The UNESCO network is an international policy-oriented network for inspiration, know-how and best practice for developing learning cities.

    The network provides Belfast with access to experts from across the world. It also allows Belfast to showcase how we are using learning to address inequalities and make life better for everyone in the city.

    The UNESCO Learning Cities Award was established to further promote lifelong learning for all age groups and showcase good practices in building learning cities. It is conferred on cities who have demonstrated outstanding progress in this area. Belfast was honoured with a UNESCO Learning City Award in 2021 in recognition for its work promoting lifelong learning across the city. 

    The Belfast Festival of Learning is an annual programme of events promoting learning across the city. For more information, email [email protected].

  • Age Friendly Belfast

    We work in partnership with others to help older people in Belfast live happier, healthier and more connected lives. Read more about Age-friendly Belfast.

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