Yesterday I read a statistic that 84 adult men commit suicide every day in the UK. It’s a shocking statistic and I wonder how that can be possible and acceptable in 2018?
Mental health is high on the agenda for the government and the media. In February 2011 the government produced a white paper "No Health without Mental Health", which was designed to lift the profile of Mental Health and bring it on a par with Physical Health. You could argue that 7 years on, they may not have achieved their goal.
In the past few weeks, I have watched documentaries about the crisis in child and adolescent mental health services in the UK and read articles about the pressure young people and adults are facing in school and work, with a lack of support or safety net when it all goes wrong.
Mental Health Awareness and Mental Health First Aid are now on the agenda for training programmes across some organisations, and again you could argue that this can only be a good thing.
If nothing else, this training could be reducing absences and increasing productivity. The Mental Health Foundation estimates that around 13% of sickness absences are directly attributed to a mental health issue. With women being twice as susceptible as men.
We are bombarded with information and advertisements highlighting what physical 'risks' to look out for and when to flag those up with health services, but there remains a gap on what to look out for and what to flag when it comes to mental health.
If staff in your organisation are aware of what to look out for, feel able to reach out and offer appropriate support as early as possible, you have to question whether this would reduce incidence in some cases and flag referral to relevant services.
There is a wealth of information available on the 'signatures' of stress and what the beginning of mental health issues may look like, but it is my opinion that this is still not part of everyday conversations at work. Corporate environments are often set up as turf wars, with people competing against each other with a perceived unwritten rule that you hide potential 'weakness'.
Essentially we are communal animals, and we often have a huge range of resources available to support people, if we were only aware that those around us were in need.
Working environments could really benefit from in-house 'awareness' courses, which would help increase understanding, and promote discussion and policies to encourage mutual support amongst teams and colleagues. At the very least it would make organisations better places to work.
My background as a psychiatric nurse definitely sparked my interest in humans, and in particular this subject. My personal family experience and a decade or so in a corporate environment has continued to fan the flames.
Please feel free to comment/discuss or contact me for more information.