Austerity: Why mental health training should remain a priority, especially in times of hardship. By Jane McNeice
I reall the recession of 2008-9 and my attempts to convince senior management teams that mental health training should be a top priority. This sat alongside efforts to influence General Practitioners and other health care practitioners to discuss return to work with their patients as part of mental health recovery and because work is extremely protective for our health. This was at a time when businesses were facing financial hardship, and their worries centred around preserving funds to pay...
Read MoreA Book to Save Lives; a book we should ALL read! By Jane McNeice
If I was having suicidal thoughts, this is a book that I really hope the person supporting me has read. If so, they will be well equipped to save me, or at the very least, keep me safe until a professional can help me. Joy Hibbins does not hold herself, or her suicide crisis centre, to a ‘zero suicide’ standard, but nevertheless, her service has achieved it… Let that thought sink in for a second… Yes, ZERO suicides. Joy knows the proven tools to save lives. She shares those...
Read MoreFurlough – an opportunity for learning
As we are nearing one week into our Tier 5 lockdown and many businesses are having or have had to re-Furlough employees, it’s perhaps yet another chance to step back and take stock. A significant proportion of the working population are again Furloughed and now have some additional time on their hands. For many families, this spare time is being redirected towards home-schooling children, but for others, they may already be feeling the harmful effects of loss of structure, purpose, and...
Read MoreWhat is the right mental health training course for me: Understanding the differences across mental health training courses, by Jane McNeice
Mind Matters has on many occasion been approached by clients looking to train managers in mental health, with a specific request for Mental Health First Aid training. There’s nothing intrinsically problematic with that at all, unless you are looking for an outcome which MHFA was not specifically designed to achieve. For this reason, it’s important for clients, commissioners, and buyers to understand how mental health training courses differ and what might be the most suitable course, or...
Read MoreReturning to School & Work post Covid-19, By Jane McNeice
For fortunate industries where the business impact of Covid-19 has been minimal, or in fact improved their circumstances, in which case they may have needed to recruit more capacity or simply continue to support existing workers, thinking about returning employees to their place of work may simply not be on their agenda. Unfortunately for many employers this has not been the case, and they may now be experiencing the various stages in the process of returning employees to work, or in the case...
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