Mental health matters. You matter.

How important is your and your team’s mental health and wellbeing to your organisation?

Hopefully, it’s top of the priority list.

However, wanting it to be top of the list, and actually making time to ensure steps are taken to protect and enhance your own, and your team’s mental health may not always feel easy.

One in four adults in England have at some time been diagnosed with mental illnesses, while one in five, report experiencing mental health issues without a diagnosis (MFHA England Statistics). 

Workplaces are seeing ever-increasing stress levels, especially during recent years when people were negotiating a way through the pandemic.

It’s vital that we all play our part in helping to keep ourselves and our colleagues as mentally healthy as possible.

The World Health Organisation 2014 statement defines mental health as:

A state of wellbeing in which every individual realises their own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to their community.

Here at CCVS, we take health and wellbeing seriously.

We look out for each other.

We make sure we have regular face-to-face meet-ups, with a walk (usually ending with a cuppa and cake!)

We have weekly online coffee time catch-ups, where we chat for 15 to 30 minutes about random day, non-work-related things. (Recent topics have included the fact that such a thing as penguin-covered gaffer tape exists; luxury dog beds; cats sleeping in flowerpots; and the joys (or sorrows for some!) of camping.

CCVS has also taken two positive steps to improve how we look after ourselves and our team.

We have created and implemented an organisational health and wellbeing strategy

A healthy workplace is where everyone feels able to share that they’re having a bad day, with no feeling of stigma, where spending 15 minutes, or even 5 minutes, away from a desk for self-care is an investment in wellbeing, which will enhance work in the long run.

A workplace where the team spend time together, if they feel comfortable doing so, taking part in occasional activities to benefit wellbeing and build strength as a healthy team. (Such as the volunteer tree planting session with Cambridge Past, Present and Future)

The strategy lays out ways in which we can look after ourselves, and what we can do if we’re having a bad day.

We share wellbeing tips in our Teams chat. There is no obligation to take part, or to feedback.

We agree to be non-judgmental, and respectful, and maintain confidentiality.

The wellbeing tips include suggestions such as:

• Sit outside and listen for 10 sounds
• Sit outside and look for 20 things
• Pick up a book and read for 15 minutes
• Write down what has gone well for you this week
• Do 15 minutes of exercise

Spending time away from the screen, and from work tasks, concentrating mindfully on something else for a short period of time is a way of relieving stress. Doing something enjoyable like listening to the birds outside can be a real mood booster.

Encouraging the team to take breaks and emphasising that taking time for ourselves is not only permitted but positively encouraged, gives us all confidence that our health is important and that it’s ok to invest time in staying well. It’s a positive message to us all, that we matter, our health and our wellbeing matters.

Members of our team have completed Mental Health First Aider training