Barnwood Trust’s commitment to mental wellbeing
We all have mental health, and sometimes poor mental health affects everyone in some way, either through personal experience or the experiences of someone we know.
Because of this, at Barnwood Trust, we are always looking for ways to promote awareness and understanding of mental health and are really pleased to announce we have become an official partner of Glos Talks, a campaign that is working to spread the message across the county that it is okay to talk about mental health.
Nathanael Arrowsmith from Glos Talks tells us what it’s all about;
“We are encouraging people across Gloucestershire to share their mental health stories. Every time you talk openly about your mental health experiences you could be breaking down stigma for someone else. We are also developing new materials to engage people with mental health services who maybe haven’t been reached with this information before.
“Funded by the County Council and working under the multi-agency tackling stigma steering group, we are also partnering with businesses, community organisations, public sector bodies, and anyone in Gloucestershire who will promote openness around mental health.”
As well as signing up to support Glos Talks Barnwood Trust also promotes wellbeing at the Trust in a number of other ways.
Jennie Brooks, who leads on supporting mental health at work with Barnwood Trust employees, said;
“We think that focussing on our employee’s mental health is really important and have been working hard to find new, and old, ways of encouraging the conversation about mental health in the office, and beyond.
“This year we have hosted mental health at work training days for all employees to ensure everyone is aware of the things that can help them keep themselves well, and also how to support colleagues who might be going through some difficulties.
“These training days have built on the workshops that were provided by groups with lived experience, as part of the wider workshop programme in 2017/18, which highlight what it’s like to live with a mental health condition and some of the social stigmas that can be associated with it.
“Additionally, to support the development of our mental health at work policy we have just trained 8 mental health at work first aiders and have 15 employees who will complete the certificate in 2020. We also provide an EAP (employee assistance programme) which has a provision for mental health support in the form of face-to-face counselling.”