Attending the Time to Change Organisational Healthcheck training and away day

I recently attended a training and meet up day for Time To Change Organisational Healthcheck Consultants. As I mentioned when posting about the work I did on an anti stigma campaign for Richmond Borough Mind, there is still a lot of discrimination, misunderstanding and silence surrounding mental health in the workplace.

The Time to Change Healthcheck

The Time To Change Organisational Healthcheck seems to be a brilliant programme. It will often, but not always, start with organisations making a pledge to end mental health stigma in their organisation. As part of their plan to do this, they ask Time To Change to do an independent review of the current situation in their workplace. As a consultant I will look at the current policies and documents, conduct an organisation wide survey and interview employees about their experiences. I will then produce a report and recommendations for the organisation.

Some organisations choose to do this as the first step towards improving mental health in their workplace. Others will put some measures into place and then ask for the healthcheck as a way of assessing their success.

Learnings and good practice

We spent the day sharing good practice and key learnings from the healthchecks already completed. It sounds like in many cases there are simple, creative solutions to issues that come up. Often people are uncertain about how to manage or talk about their own mental health or that of their employees. They may need suggestions and examples of good practice from elsewhere.

Sometimes the issues are more entrenched and will take longer to rectify – but at least the organisations have taken the first step.

In all cases it sounds like employees appreciate having a confidential, non-judgemental space to talk about their own mental health and wellbeing.

I’m only just starting this project, but I’m really looking forward to getting more involved.