World Mental Health Day 2024

The theme this year highlights the importance of addressing mental health and wellbeing in the workplace, for the benefit of people, organisations, and communities.

Work can have a huge impact on our mental health. It can be good for our mental health, giving us a sense of purpose, boosting our self-worth, and providing opportunities to connect with others. But it can also be a source of stress and anxiety and contribute to developing or worsening mental health problems.

Did you know?

• 15% of UK workers are estimated to have an existing mental health condition
• 875,000 workers suffered from work-related stress, depression and anxiety in 2022/23
• The 5th most common reason for sickness absence in 2022 was mental health.

Many people spend a lot of their time working, whether that’s in the community, in an office, a workshop, at home, or many other workplaces.

That’s why it’s so important that our workplace supports our mental health, helping us get the mental health benefits of work while reducing the negative impact.

But what is a mentally healthy workplace?

There are many things that contribute to a mentally healthy workplace, from providing staff training on mental health to tackling discrimination and bullying. Importantly, a mentally healthy workplace supports open conversations about mental health.

While talking about mental health in the workplace has become more common, many people still face stigma when it comes to severe mental health problems.

This means there’s more work to be done to tackle mental health stigma in the workplace.

If you want to make your workplace a healthier place for staff, or if you want to gain the key skills to help someone experiencing a mental health crisis, then please book with us on our next Mental Health First Aid Course, which is running on Friday 25th October.

Please see our course information here.

For every booking, we will support the UK Mental Health Foundation with their fundraising efforts and will donate Mental Health First Aider pin badges to everyone who attends our next Mental Health First Aid Course.  We’ll also donate 10% of that course’s bookings to the UK Mental Health Foundation.

There are things we can all do to help create a mentally healthy workplace that supports open conversations. We can all learn how to confidently talk about mental health with our colleagues and make a difference.