Welcome to our February edition of the MHFA England newsletter.
It has been a busy start to 2019 – not least because we have moved offices and supported the parliamentary debate on legislative change for Mental Health First Aid provision in the workplace.
This week I am visiting the MHFA International offices in Melbourne. I am proud we are part of the global MHFA community and I am looking forward to meeting Shona Bass, the new CEO of MHFA International and the Australian team. I am also delighted that even though Betty Kitchener has now retired, she has agreed to have a coffee. It will be a real pleasure to meet the founder of the concept of MHFA which we all feel so passionately about.
Following a debate held in Parliament on legislative change around mental health first aid in the workplace, a cross party group of MPs overwhelmingly backed a motion to introduce legislation to put mental and physical first aid on an equal footing through First Aid regulations. You can read more about the debate's progress below.
As you may know MHFA England has moved into our new offices which we are delighted about – we are certainly feeling the benefits and excited for what lies ahead.
Finally, I have written a few blogs which some of you may have seen on LinkedIn or Twitter. For those of you who haven’t, you can find them on our website.
The ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ campaign, led by Natasha Devon MBE, Bauer Media UK and Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England, has been leading the calls for outdated Health and Safety legislation to be amended to ensure mental health is protected in the workplace.
Mental health first aid in the workplace was debated on Parliament on the 6th January where a cross party group of MPs overwhelmingly backed a motion to introduce legislation to put mental and physical first aid on an equal footing through First Aid regulations. You can read more here.
We’re positive about this development and excited to continue moving our campaign forward but we know there’s a lot of work ahead to make legislative change a reality.
‘This is Me’ is a ground-breaking mental health campaign challenging the stigma and discrimination around mental health at work, by amplifying an MHFAider's voice, to tell their own story through video, blogs or other resources.
The campaign is led by the West Midlands Combined Authority along with launch partners including Amey, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Gowling WLG, KPMG, Birmingham Mind, Pinsent Masons, Public Health England and over 200 local companies were at the launch to support the initiative.
On 11 February we launched two new best-practice guides for employers and employees on Mental Health First Aid training in the workplace. This follows the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) recent recommendation to include ‘mental health trained first aiders’ as part of employers’ first aid needs assessments.
Want more guidance on the topic of mental health in the workplace? The Mental Health at Work gateway provides easy access to tools, resources and information to help support employee wellbeing for organisations of any size. Get started today at mentalhealthatwork.org.uk.
Congratulations to the young artists who entered our youth artwork competition! The winners have now been notified and we will be sending out certificates and vouchers to them over the coming weeks.
We will be selecting artworks to incorporate into our Youth courses, as well as sharing some of the images on our social media platforms.
The central team have moved! After almost ten years at our previous office, we had seen a lot of change in the organisation and outgrown the space. We’re really excited to have moved to our new office in Aldgate. We'd like to thank you for your patience while the move took place.
In this newsletter
