Athens police receive grant to improve responses in mental health incidents

In this video, Per talks about the year of compulsory national service he did after leaving school (in Germany, you do a year in the army or a year of national service), and how during that year, he worked in a hospital that cared for the mentally ill.

World Mental Health Day is observed on October 10 every year.

An annual initiative first marked by the World Health Organisation in 1992, the 25th World Mental Health Day is focusing specifically on promoting wellbeing in the workplace. “If anything, you might think the managers are the ones who want to be seen as strong and so are less likely to say they’re experiencing mental-health conditions”, says Sean Simpson, vice-president for Canada at Ipsos, which conducted the survey. “Balancing physical, mental, spiritual and environmental health helps prevent work-related injuries and illnesses and is essential to ensuring a happy and effective workforce”.

This, he said, is one of the reasons for the training course, to enable the services to adequately respond to mental health problems. If mental health is affecting someone’s ability to do their job, help is available through our Access to Work scheme’s dedicated Mental Health Support Service.

Mental health is not an easy conversation, but it’s one that becomes less scary the more you do it.

Well, for starters, the depression and anxiety group reports that the total annual cost in lost earnings for South Africans with mental disorders is R29.6 billion as opposed to the health department allocating a mental health budget of R488 million.

The Foundation have published a guide (https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/how-support-mental-health-work) and are calling on people to use it to make their workplaces more “mentally friendly”.

“The relationship between workplace stress and poor mental health is well established but mental health is often neglected as a key aspect of employee health”, she said. Walker adds that ignoring mental health struggles in high-stress work situations can contribute to burnout, which isn’t in anybody’s interest.

Offering help, even before employees ask. They might attempt to brush away your concerns or think they should be able to tell you about what they did they time they felt like you. Live Well Kent’s Sarah Bieniasz said: “A quarter of us will experience a mental health problem this year”.

Dr Asad acknowledged the fact that encouragement and cooperation are musts for people who are suffering from depression or any other mental health issues. There is also a psychological phenomenon sometimes called mobbing, where a well-connected person can turn others’ opinions against you. “I hope that by sharing my story, it will encourage other people to speak out and employers will demonstrate their support by signing the Time to Change pledge”.

Only once there is a pragmatic response to mental health will people finally gain the confidence to start asking for the support that is so clearly needed.