2:03pm Friday 8th January 2010
By Wellbeing At Work
I like the sleepy gap between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve. The office isn’t too busy, so it’s a good time to collect my thoughts, gird my loins (do people still do that nowadays?) and prepare for the challenges of the new year. I also like to readjust my internal hope barometer (usually inclined towards scepticism and despair) and tease the indicator back towards confidence and expectation. Isn’t that what the new year is for?
With things being so quiet, I find this an excellent time to catch up on all the reading I should have been doing in the previous six months - reports, press cuttings, government announcements, newsletters and the like.
I’ve been digesting four new government publications that give me reasons for optimism for the new year.
• Working our way to Better Mental Health: A Framework for Action - is the first GB wide National Mental Health and Employment Strategy, addressing well-being at work for all and better employment results for people with mental health conditions in and out of work • Realising Ambitions: Better employment support for people with a mental health condition is a DWP-commissioned, independent review by Rachel Perkins. It examines how we can strengthen employment, health and wider state support to help people with mental health problems on out of work benefits • Work, Recovery and Inclusion is a cross-government delivery plan for England to support people in contact with secondary mental health services into work.
• New Horizons: A shared vision for mental health is a cross-government report produced by the Department of Health including commitments to action by 11 government departments. For the first time it sets out a new approach with the twin aims of improving people’s quality of life and well-being, and improving the quality and accessibility of services for people with poor mental health.
These reports challenge previously held beliefs about mental ill-health and work, and set out bold strategies to ensure that people experiencing mental ill-health get a fair deal in the workplace.
My colleagues and I, throughout the UK, have been attending launch events and conferences to reinforce the messages in these reports and demonstrate the good business sense for greater understanding and integration. At the South West Wellbeing at Work Conference, which I attended recently, I was moved by the personal stories of two people currently in work, who had faced ignorance and discrimination because of their mental ill-health, but had battled through, with great personal courage and determination, to establish their legitimate needs and right to work happily and effectively.
I know these reports won’t change the world overnight but in this quiet pause before the start of 2010 I want to be optimistic, I want to believe the message is becoming louder and clearer.
As the ghost of Jacob Marley testified, when Scrooge suggested he had been a good man of business, “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
May that truly be said of all of us. I wish you all a peaceful, productive and benevolent New Year.
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