Would you like to become a Mental Health First Aider? Our next two day mental health first aid course takes place on 16th and 17th April – online and interactive with our nationally-accredited MHFA instructor. This course trains you as a certified Mental Health First Aider, giving you:
An in-depth understanding of mental health and the factors that can affect wellbeing
Practical skills to spot the triggers and signs of a range of mental health issues
Confidence to step in, reassure and support a person in distress using the Mental Health First Aid action plan
Enhanced interpersonal skills such as non-judgemental listening
Knowledge to help someone recover their health by guiding them to further support – whether through self-help resources, internal support such as EAP, or external sources such as their GP
An understanding of how to keep themselves safe while performing their duties
Format
This is an online course delivered in a live and highly interactive format by our nationally-recognised and accredited instructor
Learning takes place through four live training sessions, spread across two days, with self-learning activities in between.
Each session is built around a Mental Health First Aid action plan
We limit numbers to 16 people per course so that the instructor can keep people safe and supported while they learn
Takeaways
Everyone who completes the course gets:
A certificate of attendance to say they are a Mental Health First Aider
A manual to refer to whenever they need it
A quick reference card for the Mental Health First Aid action plan
A workbook including a helpful toolkit to support their own mental health
Getting Started
Enter your details below or call us on 020 3951 7685 to get started
ANXIETY – the theme of Mental Health Awareness Week 15th to 21st May
If you’ve noticed that you’re more anxious recently, then you are not alone. The last three years have seen a global rise in anxiety and anxiety disorders, and this is hardly surprising. Our daily life has been infused with uncertainty, with the fallout of the pandemic, war in Europe, cost of living crisis and ongoing environmental issues all placing an endless strain on our resilience and resources.
For many, anxiety has begun to play a larger role in their lives. The emotional side of anxiety – feelings of fear, sadness, frustration and isolation amongst others – increasingly shape our decisions, thought processes and emotional responses. And the impact is not only personal, as it can spill over into our professional lives, affecting our ability to focus and work effectively. The added pressure of struggling to meet our professional responsibilities can feed into and exacerbate the anxiety.
It is imperative, for our own mental wellbeing and for our ability to engage professionally, to find effective ways to reduce anxiety. But this can be both daunting and challenging. When we are anxious, our response is often to engage in a struggle with it, a struggle that includes various understandable but unsatisfactory responses such as distraction, suppression and denial. This struggle can leave us feeling exhausted and even make the anxiety worse.
Although it may seem counter intuitive, to manage anxiety, we have to get to know it better, to understand what it is trying to tell us. Psychologist Prof. Mark Williams argues that we must “befriend our anxiety”, seeing it not as the enemy to defeat, but something that wants attention, to be cared for. This approach can give us back a sense of agency and control in the face of the overwhelm that anxiety brings with it.
Managing anxiety can be challenging so getting professional support is a good step. Counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy are all clinically proven ways of managing and reducing anxiety. With professional support we can discover how to relate differently to the emotions, sensations and thoughts that shape and sustain our anxiety. We can learn how to ride out the waves of anxiety rather than be pulled under by them, and over time we learn to develop the resilience we need to calm down more easily from anxiety.
These three tips can help you begin your journey of facing anxiety and flourishing.
1. Talk: Anxiety can make us feel isolated, creating the sort of social and behavioural retreat that deepens the experience of anxiety. Communicating about how you are feeling, particularly the emotions that are triggering the anxiety such as fear, anger, frustration, shame, guilt, confusion etc, can often help us to “contain” the anxiety more easily. If you have a friend or loved one who is a good listener, they could be a helpful person to talk to. Professional support is also really helpful – Try your organisation’s counselling support service.
2. Thoughts are not facts: Anxiety is often fuelled by negative thoughts like “catastrophising” or abusive self-talk – thoughts that can keep us locked into mental scenarios that serve only to make us feel worse. If we can take a mental step back and see our thoughts as just opinions rather than facts, it can help us be less caught up in the thought processes that sustain our anxiety. A professional can help you to understand how your thoughts might be triggering your anxiety, and teach you to relate to your thoughts in a less alarming way.
3. The breath is your ally: When anxiety strikes, we can feel overwhelmed. A simple tip to slow the “stress response” is to consciously focus full attention on the breath. Concentrate your breath on the area of your body where you feel the anxiety most intensely (eg chest, belly, shoulders) and for a few moments, purposely slow and deepen both the in breath and the out breath. Doing so stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, sending a “stand-down” signal to the alert centre of the brain!
Anxiety workshops, courses and sessions for your employees:
From Anxious to Calmworkshop – 60 minute group workshop
Mindfulness for Anxietyworkshop – 60 minute group workshop
Facing Anxiety and Flourishingcourse – 4 x 60 minute group course
Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapycourse – 8 x 60 minute group course
Confidential One to One Counselling – Anxiety counselling with our specialist mental health therapists
Book us to run an anxiety workshop, course or session
If you’d like to book us to run a workshop, course or session please enter your details below or contact us for more information.
Men’s Health Week presents a terrific opportunity for employers to bring awareness to health issues that affect men disproportionately, and to encourage male employees to think more about their health and wellbeing.
Wellbeing Partners’ selection of relevant workshops include:
Men’s Health – presented by our award-winning men’s health educator and campaigner Peter Baker, this 60-minute live and interactive session encourages men to engage in discussion and learn about different aspects of physical and mental health that are most likely to impact men such as heart disease, prostate and other cancers, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction and other sexual health issues, diabetes, weight, alcohol and substance misuse, depression and more. The session promotes the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, providing simple, straightforward advice, and encourages men to think more about their wellbeing and access health services when required. (In-person or online)
Men’s Mental Health – presented by one our fully qualified counselling psychotherapists and men’s mental health specialists, this 60-minute live and interactive session focuses on removing stigma and shame around men discussing and seeking help for mental health issues, provides effective tips and techniques for how men can improve their mental health and wellbeing, and signposts men to the variety of support services they can access if required (including promoting services such as an EAP).
Mindfulness for Men – presented by our James Milford, our head of behavioural sciences and a fully qualified mindfulness-based cognitive therapist, this 60-minute live and interactive session offers your male employees an ideal opportunity to learn about the science behind mindfulness and to try a range of meditations as a highly effective form of DIY mental healthcare. Using evidence-based and scientifically proven mindfulness and meditation techniques to reduce stress and anxiety, overcome unhelpful thinking patterns, improve sleep and benefit overall health. (In-person or online)
One to One Wellbeing Sessions – our team of fully qualified wellbeing coaches include five male therapists, who we can make available to your employees during Men’s Health Week, or at any time of the year! These sessions offer tailored, confidential mental health and wellbeing support directly to your employees, including those who might be otherwise reluctant to access mental health support, based on their individual requirements. (In-person or online)
Employee Health Screening – Know Your Numbers – our team of registered occupational health nurses come to your workplace to provide employees with individual health checks onsite. Tests include cholesterol and blood sugar levels, blood pressure, waist:hip ratio & BMI; cardiovascular, discussion around alcohol consumption, exercise, smoking and diet, plus overall health. Each employee receives their personalised results in a graphical and easy to understand report, with signposting to specific health services where relevant. We also provide your organisation with an anonymous overview of the health of your employees, and a comparison with national average. (In-person)
Did you know?
Diabetes Week runs from the 8th to the 13th of June. Our fully qualified nutritional therapists present a range of relevant workshops such as ‘Sugar Awareness: Reducing Sugar from your Diet’ and ‘Nutrition and Healthy Eating’.
Healthy Eating Week runs from the 14th to the 20th of June and focuses on helping us be more aware of what foods we need to increase and avoid to balance our diet and eat more healthily. Our workshops include “Top 10 Tips for Healthy Eating’; ‘All about Breakfast’; as well as Cooking Demonstrations and ‘One-to-One Nutrition Sessions.
World Yoga Day is on the 21st of June, a day for fun and learning about all the different types of Yoga and its benefits. We offer 45 minute sessions in-person or online with our fully qualified yoga teachers. All welcome from beginners to intermediate level. Yoga mats are provided for in-house sessions.
Getting Started
Enter your details below or call us on 020 3951 7685 to get started
The New Normal offers us many challenges. The reality is that we are still living and working in an ongoing global pandemic.
With lockdown gradually lifting and organisations starting to plan a return to the workplace, a huge number of employees are anxious and uncertain about how to navigate the new normal. According to research:
65% of people are anxious about returning to the workplace
70% of people are anxious about using public transport
A very large number of people across the country are also concerned about returning to a frantic pace of life, are anxious about socialising after a long period of isolation, and many are worried about potential changes in social etiquette.
The good news is that there are many steps we can take to meet the varied challenges and flourish, both professionally and personally. Our behavioural science team have created a one hour interactive workshop for employees called Navigating the New Normal:
Understanding the New Normal
Managing the Stress Response
How to Cope with:
Transport
Office / Workplace
Socialising
Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction
Techniques for reducing anxiety: Labelling and Grounding
Professional support
Self Care Action Plan
Communication Tips
For more information and to book the workshop for your employees, contact [email protected]
Whilst things seem to be feeling more positive for many people right now, there is evidence of a growing wave of mental health problems that have come as a consequence of the pandemic and life in lockdown. This supports our experience gained from running confidential employee counselling and wellness sessions with organisations across the country, where we also notice large numbers of employees experiencing extreme levels of work-related stress, rising numbers who are very anxious about the future and many who are worried about returning to the workplace.
There are two important mental health events on the horizon which present an opportunity for organisations to support the mental health and wellbeing of employees:
Stress Awareness Month: April 2021
Mental Health Awareness Week: 10-16 May 2021
Here are our five top sessions that dovetail with these important events to keep your employees healthy, productive, focused and creative over the coming months:
‘Managing Change’: this 60 minute session looks at the inevitability of change in our professional and personal lives and explores how change can cause uncertainty and stress, how this is a normal reaction and how we can rise to the challenges of change, not only to manage, but to flourish
‘From Anxious to Calm’: with anxiety disorders becoming ever more prevalent this 60 minute session provides employees with an in-depth understanding of anxiety, the most common triggers and tips and techniques for managing the mental and physical symptoms, including how to calm the mind and take good care of the nervous system.
‘Reducing Stress and Enhancing Resilience’: this interactive 60 minute workshop provides practical tips and techniques for enhancing resilience to both short and long-term stress. Looking at the biochemistry of the stress response system, it introduces the concept of the ‘stress container’ to aid understanding of how to manage pressured situations more effectively.
‘How to Improve your Mental Health’: drawing on evidence-based strategies and techniques, this 60 minute solutions focused session provides employees with practical steps, tips and advice to enhance all aspects of their mental health.
‘Facing Anxiety and Flourishing’: this 4 week course, one hour a week, utilises a blend of practices from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, resilience training, stress reduction, self-compassion, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence to give participants a distinctive set of tools to help them respond to anxiety skilfully and with confidence. The course can be run either in-house or people can join as part of an open course.
By way of introduction, Wellbeing Partners is the mental and physical wellbeing specialist, providing whole-person health programmes to organisations across the UK and around the world. We are a leading provider of stress management and full-service employee mental health services ( https://wellbeing.partners ) and have a full suite of integrated wellbeing solutions that focus on awareness, prevention and remedy. Our sessions are all live, interactive and on the online platform of your choice (currently) or in a bespoke pre-recorded Video Podcast format.
If you’d like to hear more about any of our sessions and master classes for any mental health and wellbeing initiatives or events you might be thinking of or planning for, please get in touch at [email protected] or call Nick Winfield on 07773 767248
We are delighted to welcome our new Research Assistant, Helen Dawet, to the Wellbeing Partners team!
Helen recently graduated from Brunel University London with a first class BSc in Psychology, where she developed a strong interest and talent for research and experimental projects around human behaviour, mindfulness, empathy and improving mental wellbeing through the whole-person health approach.
Wellbeing Partners has seen spectacular growth this year, with employee wellbeing at the top of the agenda for many organisations, and Helen will be providing research support to our team of over 50 specialist presenters and clinicians across the fields of employee mental health and wellbeing, behavioural science, mindfulness, physical wellbeing, nutritional health, functional medicine and occupational health.
As home-working continues indefinitely for those who are able to work from home, many people are citing increasing pressures and conflicts in their relationships at home, with tempers flaring between partners, and towards children, and tensions running far higher than usual.
Our one-hour workshop for up to 100 employees per session – “Reducing Conflict At Home” – looks at a range of practical tips and techniques for resolving conflict in personal relationships, helping everyone stay grounded and calm.
Topics include:
Patterns of behaviour to avoid
Managing emotions and self-regulating
Identifying the unmet need
Observing rather than evaluating – for conflict-free interactions
Resolving conflict mindfully
This one hour session is presented by one of our highly experienced mental health professionals – a fully qualified BACP-accredited psychodynamic counsellor, occupational psychologist, cognitive behavioural therapist, mindfulness teacher and MHFA instructor.
The session is highly interactive and can be presented via Skype, Zoom, Webex, Blue Jeans, GoToWebinar or the video conferencing tool of your choice.
For more information on this or our many employee mental health workshops and sessions, please contact us at [email protected] or visit our website www.mindfulnessintheworkplace.org
Our programmes director Lou Campbell is a guest speaker at the Watercooler Event next week and is talking on the topic of Supporting the Mental Health of Neurodivergent Employees on both days. Her speaking slots are on Tuesday 23rd April at 3pm...
This year’s Mental Health Awareness week takes place between 13th and 19th May and the theme is Movement and Mental Health. This theme may surprise many who perhaps do not equate movement with supporting their...
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