Thrive: Mental Wellbeing is supporting and encouraging businesses across the UK to have conversations and create a culture where employees can share their experiences and advice behind help-seeking with the campaign ‘I Get Help’.

The number of Brits facing mental health difficulties has increased sharply during the pandemic, a recent report by Mind stated that two in three adults (65%,) said their mental health worsened during the first national lockdown. The financial impact poor mental health has had on businesses reflects these figures at a record high of £53-£56bn. However, with just over half (52%) of employees not feeling supported by their employer when it comes to mental health, THRIVE says it’s likely these numbers will increase massively.

THRIVE notes that showing vulnerability and being able to communicate when we feel stressed and overwhelmed, takes bravery and courage. Something that not everyone is prepared for or feels able to do, reflected by findings that 60% of people with a mental health problem waited over a year to tell the people closest to them about it. The support a business provides its employees can heavily influence how early an employee will reach out for help.

Mental Health Awareness Week (9th – 15th May), creates an opportunity to acknowledge and discuss how you truly feel and why. Empowering not only yourself but those around you to include mental health into daily conversations. Throughout Mental Health Awareness Week, Thrive will be sharing people’s experiences of seeking help across social media via #IGETHELP, along with offering advice to organisations keen to promote more mental health conversations in the workplace.

We encourage you to follow Thrive on all social media platforms, to understand how we can get these conversations started in the work place, and the benefits it can have on staff and productivity.

We also wanted to add some crisis helpline numbers if you don’t feel comfortable speaking someone close to you, but would like to seek help or a member of your staff needs access to these resources. Remember, a problem shared is a problem halved!

Samaritans (24/7 helpline): 116 123
Mind (9am-6pm Monday to Friday): 0300 123 3393 or text 86463
NHS: 111 or 999
The Mix (11am-11pm): 0808 808 4994 or text ‘THEMIX’ to 85258.

Alternatively, please click on the links above to visit their websites.

If you would like to discuss the above, or about how we can collaborate, please let us know. To get in touch, email recruitment@ajrecruitment.com or call us on 03305 552233.

As a specialist, family-run recruitment business, we provide a proactive and consultative approach to recruitment within Social Care. We help organisations to target issues such as continuity of staffing, reducing spend where you have a high volume of agency usage and supporting those who have specific talent requirements or are in hard to fill locations. We can help with any immediate staffing requirements or longer-term recruitment projects to ultimately save you time and money on agency spend.

Our customers tell us that we are their main stream of important information regarding the social care sector. We want to ensure the content we are sharing regularly is relevant and useful, so we would love to hear from you! What topics that you would like us to share next?