Mental Health Awareness Week
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week! As a business, the health and wellbeing of our staff is important to us. This week and throughout the year we are doing many things to support our staff through these challenging times.
We currently have an Employee Assistance Programme with Health Assured, where our staff are able to get 24/7 support by trained professionals on issues with mental health, family, lifestyle and more. This week we’re distributing new credit sized cards with helpful information about our EAP, so each staff member can have Health Assured’s contact details to hand for whenever they, or their household family members may need support.
We also have in-house Wellbeing Champions who are trained in Mental Health First Aid. Regular courses are provided to our champions to ensure they are fully equipped to deal with any support which our staff need. Our champions from this week will also be easily recognisable with new yellow lanyards and hard hat stickers!
Throughout Mental Health Awareness Week we’re dedicating our social media channels to spreading the word on how to look after your mental health, and the positive changes we are making within the workplace to ensure our staff are supported at all times. One of the great things we are doing is working with the charity CALM, (Campaign against living miserably) where we are creating bespoke training courses for our Wellbeing Champions, with the plans to roll out the course to additional staff, finally aiming to have 1 in 10 members of Sapphire Utility Solutions staff trained in Mental Health First Aid.
Today we spoke to Sapphire’s Environmental Coordinator Ellis Lloyd who graduated from Salford University in 2019 , focussing his dissertation on the benefits of green space for mental health alongside the charity City of Trees.
“I learnt from my dissertation that people are becoming disconnected to nature and that this could be having a negative effect on peoples wellbeing. Mainly this is down to people not utilising their local green space, as people believe they need to travel to feel the benefits of the outdoors, missing opportunities to improve their wellbeing. There are many different ways in which people can feel benefits from accessing there local green space;
- Socially, where social interactions with friends or families within nature
- Immersive, where people are able to lose themselves in the nature
- Symbolic, where people can gain a sense of perspective as they gain comfort through appreciating nature and achievement oriented, where people bird watch or go fishing
These are not the only benefits in which people can feel. Over the lockdowns it has been clear to see that people are starting to use their green space more and more and people should continue to do this now the lockdowns are coming to the end to continue to benefit their wellbeing.”
Ellis’ tips for looking after your mental health at work:
Try to stay organised to relieve stress
Take time away from the laptop on your lunch break. When working from home I take a walk around the local park.
Ellis’ top positive picks about Sapphire’s approach to mental health:
The E Assurance.
The easy ability to get counselling and support.
Ellis’ favourite quote to live by:
“Never give up!”