We are marking Mental health awareness week this month by devoting a four-part mini-series to mental health at work. In our concluding episode this week, Ellie is joined by Simon Blake OBE, Chief Executive at Mental Health First Aid England to explain the role of mental health first aid in the workplace.

We discuss:

· The purpose of mental health first aid in the workplace;

· How senior leaders play a critical role in implementing mental health first aid;

· Key preliminary steps to take before rolling out mental health first aid;

· The role of a mental health first aider and what it does not include;

· How to prepare a mental health first aider for their role and ensuring they have appropriate support; and

· The positive impact of mental health first aid at work and outside work.

You can listen to previous episodes in our mental health mini-series:

Part 1: Mental health at work: turning despair into hope, with Jonny Benjamin MBE

Part 2: Implementing effective mental wellbeing measures, with Neil Laybourn

Part 3: Protecting your employees' digital wellbeing, with Alice Hendy MBE

* Please note these podcasts will not run on Internet Explorer

To access further support on mental health, you may wish to visit: the Samaritans, Mind, or Rethink. Or you can use the text service from Shout on 85258.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please subscribe to be notified when new episodes release. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to stay up to date with the latest episodes.

All information is correct at the time of recording.

The Work Couch is not a substitute for legal advice.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are marking Mental health awareness week this month by devoting a four-part mini-series to mental health at work. This week, in part 3, Ellie is joined by Alice Hendy MBE, CEO and founder of charity R;pple Suicide Prevention to explain how employers can protect their employees' digital wellbeing.

We discuss:

· Alice's own experiences of losing her 21 year old brother Josh to suicide and her subsequent discovery that he had viewed severely harmful content online;

· How Alice founded R;pple in Josh's memory and devised a pioneering digital tool that intercepts searches for harmful content online;

· The significant role that harmful content is now playing in some suicides;

· Effectively signposting people to free mental health support;

· The impact that R;pple has had and how it has saved lives; and

· How employee privacy and data is protected when using R;pple.

You can listen to previous episodes in our mental health mini-series:

Part 1: Mental health at work: turning despair into hope, with Jonny Benjamin MBE

Part 2: Implementing effective mental wellbeing measures, with Neil Laybourn

* Please note these podcasts will not run on Internet Explorer

To access further support on mental health, you may wish to visit: the Samaritans, Mind, or Rethink. Or you can use the text service from Shout on 85258.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please subscribe to be notified when new episodes release. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to stay up to date with the latest episodes.

All information is correct at the time of recording.

The Work Couch is not a substitute for legal advice.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To mark Mental health awareness week this month, we are devoting a four-part mini-series to mental health at work. In part 2, Ellie is joined by the other key person from the incredible "Stranger on the bridge" story, Neil Laybourn, who on that fateful day in January 2008, stopped to talk to Jonny Benjamin, who was about to take his own life on Waterloo Bridge.

Like Jonny (who Ellie spoke to in part 1 "Turning despair into hope"), Neil is a passionate mental health advocate and now runs his own consultancy, helping employers to implement end-to-end employee mental health programmes.

We discuss:

· Neil's 30-minute conversation with a stranger on a bridge that sparked a remarkable friendship and a shared determination to champion better mental health support;

· Challenges and barriers for businesses in supporting their people's mental health;

· Hybrid working and mental health;

· Removing negative working practices to help create a psychologically safe workplace culture, for example the Mindful Business Charter;

· Factors to take into account when implementing mental wellbeing support measures;

· The business case for better mental health support at work; and

· How to engage under-represented communities in implementing your organisation's mental wellbeing programme.

* Please note these podcasts will not run on Internet Explorer

To access further support on mental health, you may wish to visit: the Samaritans, Mind, or Rethink. Or you can use the text service from Shout on 85258.

We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please subscribe to be notified when new episodes release. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to stay up to date with the latest episodes.

All information is correct at the time of recording.

The Work Couch is not a substitute for legal advice.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.