Every year we fully support Mental Health Awareness Week as an opportunity to focus on how our business looks after the well being of our staff and our temporary workforce.

This year we wanted to focus specifically on awareness – in the past we have tried promoting wellbeing by encouraging our staff to take walks and eat better, but we identified a lack of knowledge surrounding Mental Health issues and agreed that we should use this week as intended – to promote awareness!

Our plan included an activity for each day of the week:

Monday:

Our consultants visited clients with posters we made promoting our Mental Health portal, so that our workers and client’s employees can benefit from helpful resources.

Tuesday: 

We directed our staff to our portal and then quizzed them on their knowledge! Gaps can be addressed and there was a lot to learn, so this was a real success.

Wednesday:

Each branch was given a topic: Anger, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Menopause and Depression. They were tasked with independent research, with the goal of finding useful resources that we could use to expand our library. There was an ulterior motive here in that we wanted to promote a discussion in branches around Mental Health, which did happen.

Thursday:

We compiled the information from Wednesday and sent the highlights back to our branch network. This has also helped us to populate our Mental Health Portal.

Friday:

We provided a scenario surrounding a Mental Health issue, where our staff had to decide, as a branch, how they would handle it.

We posed this question: “You notice a work colleague went to the toilet, but has been there quite a long time.  They come in shortly after, struggling for breath, sweating, saying they don’t feel very well. What do you think could be happening? What do you think is the most important thing? What would you do?”

Each branch replied correctly identifying the situation as a panic attack, and we had some great suggestions as to how we could help:

Make conversation and positive affirmations

• Ask questions: Introduce yourself and ask if the person needs help. If so, ask them if they think that they are having a panic attack and whether they have had one before. This prompt may remind them about previous attacks and how they recovered.
• Stay or go: Let the person know that they do not have to stay where they are. Leaving a certain situation can take the pressure off someone having a panic attack. Find out what makes them feel most comfortable.
• Kind words: Staying positive and non judgmental is important. Help the person understand that you are there to assist them, they are safe, and they are going to get through this. Remind them that the panic attack is only temporary.
• Have a friendly conversation: An engaging chat can help distract a person from their symptoms. If you are a friend, gently bring up a topic that they are interested in to help them think of something else.

Suggest grounding techniques

• Sitting down: Relaxing in a comfortable chair sounds simple, but it can be extremely effective. With the feet comfortably on the floor, a person should focus on breathing in and out slowly and how it feels sitting on the chair.
• The 5-4-3-2-1 technique: Focusing on other things in the room and different senses can distract the person from the panic attack. They can focus on identifying five items to see, four objects to touch, three noises to hear, two different smells, and one taste.
• Simple maths: Counting from one to 10 out of order or performing simple mathematical calculations, such as times tables, provides something else on which to concentrate.
• Focus: Ask the person what day of the week it is, who they are with, and where they are.

Also:

We worked in partnership with CPL Distribution to donate £100 to Nottinghamshire Mind – you can read more about that here:

Overall, the week was a success and we raised several important discussions around Mental Health and its impact on our daily life.

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