Mental Health Awareness and Mental Health First Aid Training

Amberon has always taken great pride in nurturing a strong team culture, so when Coronavirus hit earlier this year, the team at Amberon wanted to make sure that during those unprecedented times of furlough, media speculation and economic uncertainty, that there was a greater requirement than ever before to support each other through improved mental health awareness and support.

Amberon first developed a bespoke internal training course in 2019, which includes aspects and advice from Mental Health First Aid England and has been delivered by the Group HR Manager to all people managers in the business.

The course is aimed at raising awareness of general mental health issues as well as providing more detailed information on specific mental health illnesses and advice on how best to support colleagues and employees.

Starting with general information and informational videos, the course then focuses on three mental health illnesses that colleagues may come across in the workplace: stress, depression and anxiety.

There is detailed information on the symptoms of these conditions and videos and information on how it can feel to experience these conditions from people who have suffered with them, including utilising the industry-specific Talk More video.

This personal approach is very informative and enables participants to understand how it might feel to experience these conditions if they have never had the experience of them themselves.

By improving understanding, Amberon believes that we unlock the door to better supporting each other. The course also highlights that mental health is an evolving being and fluid, personal to the individual, and affects the whole person. One size certainly does not fit all and therefore one approach to help or solve mental health issues does not fit all either.

The course gives participants the tools and confidence to appropriately support employees and colleagues and further the team culture Amberon believe so strongly in.

Christina Scant has an influential hand in Amberon’s mental health awareness strategy and subsequent training

Covid-19

The added strain and complexity of Mental Health issues at the time of Coronavirus did not go unnoticed.

Adding additional modules to the existing training and liaising with industry colleagues and external mental health experts saw a new updated version of the MH training and awareness programme finalised by the end of March, just one week after the UK lockdown.

Taking the delivery of this newly adapted training and awareness programme to the now familiar format of a Teams Webinar has allowed an even greater depth of participation, resulting in record numbers of company management having received this course.

Of course, this is no reason for Amberon to press pause on such an important topic.

There are now plans to deliver the course to all depot spokespeople to assist them in supporting colleagues too, as well as the Amberon leadership team making a renewed commitment to fund the external Employee Assistance Program to provide professional support to colleagues. This includes a 24/7 helpline and informative website.

Additionally, Amberon has developed a working relationship with the Mental Health Foundation and supports its campaigns annually. This includes the ‘I’m fine’ campaign, which Amberon are currently promoting internally. The aim of the campaign is to encourage employees to discuss mental health more openly, and more details on the ‘I’m fine’ campaign can be found by clicking here

Christina Scant, Group Head of Human Resources told us:

“Our mental health awareness course in addition to the subsequent mental health training is something that we as a company are very proud of. We believe it is vital within our business to support our team wherever we can.

“It’s fantastic that the general stigma around mental health and the discussion of such issues seem to be ever decreasing. We’re living in a truly revolutionary time for the prevention and treatment of mental health issues.

“However, there is still much to be done, and as mental health awareness increases, we believe our efforts and provisions must too. There are still many people struggling with these issues on a day-to-day basis, and we see it as our duty to provide continued, long term support for our people.

“It’s not just a tick in the box, it’s a commitment to our people and their health.”