We are delighted to see how organisations such as Melin Homes are supporting Time to Talk Day this year. The coronavirus pandemic means that we may not be able to organise the events and activities that we usually would to encourage people to talk about mental health. But one thing remains the same: we know that the more conversations we have, the more myths we can bust and barriers we can break down, and the closer we will come to ending mental health stigma and discrimination. Read how Melin Homes are encouraging conversations about mental health in the workplace. It's #TimeToTalk and time to #EndStigma. Fiona Williams of Melin Homes writes:
We always have a focus on health and wellbeing, through our initiative Zest and to start this year off we have offered staff free daily exercise classes, art and craft sessions, we have a booked a session with Nigel Owens MBE on Mental Health and Resilience. Staff are allowed to take time out of their day to attend the sessions organised by Zest.
For front line staff we have been running workshops focussed on resilience, this was supported by all our senior manager team who did personal videos explaining what resilience means to them and a time in their lives when they have needed to find resilience to cope with something in work or their personal lives. We asked staff to share what resilience means to them by commenting on the videos our senior management team shared. One staff member said:
“Resilience to me involves acknowledging how a situation or event has made you feel, embracing and accepting those feelings, and then having the emotional strength and ability to move on in a positive direction.”
We have engaged with staff to spread a little kindness and love their work buddy – people put their names forward and get given a person to buy a gift for and surprise them We ran this on kindness day last year and it really lifted staff and we had some lovely feedback.
On the 4th we have a virtual catch up across the business, encouraging people to take some time out to talk – we are encouraging people to bring an afternoon tea to the call as well. Finally, we also have arranged a talk with local writer Julie Derrick on anxiety.
We'd love to hear what you organise for Time to Talk Day 2021. Share what you're up to using the hashtag #TimeToTalk