Published by Neil ThompsonStress Matters, the event industry workplace wellbeing organisation, who are accredited by Mental Health First Aid England (and also Well Being Partners of DW), are turning to the events industry to make events safe and to support out-of-work colleagues at the same time.
Laura Capell-Abra, founder of Stress Matters wants to see “the holistic safety of crew and guests considered as the industry re-opens.” In a pulse-check on the status of wellbeing in the events industry that Stress Matters conducted in May 2020, it was found that 11% of respondents reported that their employer hasn't tried to limit team stress during the pandemic and 44% had tried with some basic initiatives but maybe not hard enough according to the respondents.
Mental health first aid training is the equivalent to physical first aid but helps individuals spot and support those that might be experiencing mental ill health. The #MHFAEveryEvent campaign encourages venues and organisers to put physical and mental safety on an equal par by ensuring that whenever an event takes place, there will be an appropriate number of mental health first aiders available to support if needed.
The central London venue, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace have already achieved this benchmark and Catherine Owen, Head of Venue Sales & Marketing tells us “Organisers and guests coming to our venue can be assured that we will always have a mental health first aid trained team member on site for every event. It is extremely important to us that we look after everyone holistically and so we now have an equal amount of physical and mental health first aiders.”
Unique Venues of London have supported mental health training for the industry in partnership with Stress Matters for the last year. “It’s not just managers who need to adopt a better understanding of wellbeing issues, it’s something which applies to everyone who works in the MICE industry. As such, I would encourage all those working in the sector to strongly consider signing-up to a Mental Health First Aiders Course to become more proficient at managing issues as they arise in the workplace.” Encourages Lisa Hatswell, Managing Director of Unique Venues of London.
Stress Matters want to take this one step further and are also launching a campaign to support those out of work in the industry. They have seen an increase in recent weeks of people contacting the Support Line that Stress Matters set-up, run by event industry volunteers trained in Mental Health First Aid.
Capell-Abra shares, “For every space booked on one of our Mental Health First Aid courses, Stress Matters will then match this by gifting a space on a Mental Health Aware course for individuals that have been made redundant. The more companies that become #MHFAEveryEvent, the more out-of-work industry colleagues we can also support.”
Stress Matters have been supporting individuals in the industry, including the freelance community across the industry through their work with Connektd, The Freelance Summit and a variety of webinars.
- If you want to train your team in mental health first aid, click here.
- If you have been made redundant and want to register to receive a gifted space, register here.
- Stress Matters are running a free webinar on the 5th August for those that have been made redundant. Register here.
- Stress Matters will host a list of venues and organisers that are #MHFAEveryEvent compliant on their website so please register here if your organisation would like to be included in the list.
- Stress Matters set-up a volunteer-led Support Line for anyone in the industry who needed someone to speak to. This was originally set-up for 3 months in April 2020 and has now been extended until the end of August. The number which can be called, SMS, WhatsApp is: 07481 362 111
