Consultancy
I would love to help you make your social policies and programmes kinder! And to help you to raise the morale of your team. Mental health theory and sharing what I’ve learned is my passion. Working together we can make small changes to promote mental health and wellbeing for those you work with or serve.
I work with teams within national government departments, local government, academic institutions, small businesses and charities - if your policy or programme impacts people then I may be able to help.
Most public service policy makers and programme managers develop and deliver their policies and programmes with the very best of intentions - to make things better for the people they serve.
Unfortunately there are sometimes unintended consequences and people (both the clients and those responsible for the product) actually feel worse.
It is my growing belief that one of the reasons for this is the mental health landscape in which these policies and programmes are expected to flourish.
The 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (the largest population based mental health survey in England) reported that:
one in six people had a common mental disorder - this is medical jargon for experience conditions that include worry, fatigue, anxiety, phobias, panic, compulsion and obsession and depression to name a few.
more women were suffering CMDs than men and women rates of CMD were going up, particularly those for young women.
only one in three (just under half) people were accessing the treatment they need,
one third of adults reported having experienced a traumatic event and one person in 20 had post-traumatic stress disorder. And, finally,
whilst the numbers with severe mental illness has remained fairly sable the number of people feeling suicidal or self harming had increased.
I tell you this not to worry or scare you, but to emphasise the sheer number of people managing quite difficult symptoms on a daily basis; this affects how your policies or programmes are received and whether you get the engagement you are seeking.
My mental health consultancy work is all about helping you think through how to improve (or not harm) the mental wellbeing of your customers, your staff and yourselves.
PIP: Psychology in Policy
I help organisations to understand how their policies or programme roll-outs may unintentionally trigger the very mental health conditions we seek to heal, unnecessarily and unintentionally increasing anxiety, depression or avoidance in the very people we seek to engage. By making very small changes to policy design or roll-out we can avoid triggering symptoms and maybe even create some trust - enough to help people access the care and support they need.
WWB - Workforce Wellbeing
I support organisations to improve the mental wellbeing of their staff; happy healthy staff tend to be more productive, more creative, more engaged and more willing. What’s not to love about that? Perhaps you need to review your mental health policy or support your workforce to engage in activities known to improve mental wellbeing, reduce stimga or improve engagement. Many organisations have signed up to 1-day mental health training for staff - this is a great start but I believe we can do more.
Please contact me for an initial conversation, together we can find the key.
