Mental Health Training at Umbrella

Mental ill health is extremely common in New Zealand, and in any 12-month period, more than 20% of New Zealanders are likely to experience mental ill health; with 47% of New Zealanders likely to experience mental ill health at some point in their lives.  These figures include common experiences such as stress, depression and anxiety as well as more serious mental health concerns.

For employees, it means that at any point in time, some form of mental health issue may affect them, with research highlighting this could have direct negative consequences on their personal wellbeing and productivity. For organisations, this can mean costs resulting from increased absenteeism as well as reduced productivity from employees who are working whilst unwell. However, with greater awareness of mental health and its impact in the workplace, coupled with improved management of mental health at work, these consequences can be mitigated.

Umbrella provide training workshops which have been developed specifically for people leaders to increase their confidence and competence in identifying and managing stress and mental health in their people, and to create a work environment that fosters positive mental health.

The key learning outcomes will be understanding mental health and mental illness and what contributes to both, reviewing the factors that have either a positive or negative influence on people’s mental health, and identifying the causes of work-related stress, when stress turns into signs of something more serious, and know what to do about it.

People leaders will also learn to hold effective conversations about mental health, including how to safely raise issues of concern, and review effective, practical strategies to strengthen wellbeing at work.

The Umbrella team’s approach is informed by their extensive experience in developing protocols, and providing training and on-going support for improving mental health at work. The Umbrella team are all registered clinical psychologists with decades of experience in the mental health field.

As well as providing organisational interventions they have all worked clinically with people experiencing mental health problems, including working closely with their families and workplaces to support them. In their view this practical experience is vital in the wellbeing field as there can often be a mismatch between the theory of best practice management of mental health and the actual practice.

For more information on workplace wellness, wellness at work and mental resilience please go to http://umbrella.org.nz .