World Mental Health Day – How you can get involved

Posted 5 years ago

1 in 4 people in the UK experience mental ill-health each year (NHS). This means, statistically speaking, you probably know someone who has or who is currently struggling with their mental health. Here are some more shocking statistics surrounding Mental Ill-Health from MHFA England:

676 million people are affected by mental health issues worldwide
The total cost of mental ill-health in England is estimated at £105 billion per year
Half of mental ill-health problems start at age 15 and 75% develop by age 18
1 in 6 workers will experience depression, anxiety or problems relating to stress at any one time
Every year it costs business £1,300 per employee whose mental health needs are unsupported
There were 526,000 cases of work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2016/17 in Great Britain
Read more…

World Mental Health Day

Today (10th October) marks World Mental Health Day.

This year’s theme set by the World Federation for Mental Health is suicide prevention. The World Health Organisation reported that every 40 seconds, someone commits suicide around the world. Therefore making it the second leading cause of death among people 15 to 29 year olds. In the UK, 90% of people who die by suicide have a mental health condition at the time of their death and for young men, suicide is the leading cause of death.

The WHO (World Health Organisation) have published a leaflet trying to get as many people as possible to talk about suicide and improve awareness of the topic while learning what can be done to prevent it. They also offer more ideas about what you can do to take part in suicide prevention.

Our mental health and wellbeing week

We’re big advocates of supporting mental ill-health in the workplace and offering resources to employees to support their mental health. That’s why we have two Mental Health First Aiders, regular meditation weeks and we try to encompass a culture where mental health can be spoken about openly. And of course, we have our mental health awareness training courses.

This week we have been having our own Wellbeing Week at iHasco to support World Mental Health Day.

If you would like to follow our Wellbeing Week activities for ideas or inspiration for your own wellbeing week, then follow the #iHascoWellbeingWeek on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook! We are also donating to 25p to our charity – the MCS – for every Mental Health and Wellbeing Course that is completed this week (7th-11th October)!

Spreading awareness through eLearning

Through our Mental Health eLearning courses, we hope to support employers who want to do something about Mental Ill-Health at work. The courses can have the awkward conversation for any employer that wants to address mental health in their workplace but doesn’t know how to. It also does a lot of the employer’s work for them, because the course is designed to help staff manage their own mental health in simple, practical ways moving forward.

We offer 3 sector-specific Mental Health courses for Construction, Care and Education as well as our generic Mental Health Awareness Course and Mental Health Awareness for Managers. We also offer a Stress Awareness Course.

We update our blog page daily and have a specific area dedicated to Mental Health. You can find some of our most popular mental health and wellbeing blogs below: