The mental health of the emergency service workforce has never been more important. That’s why Mind and The Royal Foundation have worked with the Emergency Responder Senior Leader Board to unite the emergency services community in their approach to supporting the mental health of their people.
A statement of intent
To deliver this ambition, senior leaders have signed the Mental Health at Work Commitment. This is an unprecedented agreement, declaring that mental health is, and will remain, a firm priority for all UK emergency services. For the first time, a uniform set of standards for supporting staff mental health will be adopted and integrated into their workplaces.
The Duke of Cambridge, Sajid Javid MP, Mind CEO Paul Farmer and senior leaders from across UK emergency services gathered together in November 2021 to launch the Commitment.
The signing of the Mental Health at Work Commitment is just the beginning. Improving mental health outcomes within the emergency services will require an ongoing collaborative and inclusive effort.
Mind has developed a series of resources as a starting point to help put the Commitment into action. They outline the Commitment, and provide ideas and useful resources to help anyone working or volunteering in the emergency services to take action.
They showcase some of the excellent work taking place across services, promoting shared learning and offering ideas to help you embed best practice in your organisation.
This webinar series brings together senior leaders, champions, and wellbeing leads from across UK emergency services. We talk all things Mental Health at Work Commitment related, as it applies to the Blue Light community.
Blue Light colleagues showcase their work and offer some practical tips on implementing the Commitment standards.
We hope they inspire you to be involved in shaping action going forward.
This guide is for you if you’re already an active champion of mental health or considering whether to become a champion in your service. This includes blue light, wellbeing or mental health champions, peer supporters, mental health first aiders, and TRiM practitioners.
It provides ideas and useful resources to help you take action to support better mental health in your service.
This guide from Mind is for people with roles linked to mental health and wellbeing, learning and development, human resources, organisational culture and management.
It provides you with ideas and useful resources for developing, enhancing and evidencing your efforts towards supporting the mental health and wellbeing of your people.
This summary from Mind outlines how senior leaders can take action and play a vital role in ensuring the Mental Health at Work Commitment leads to improved mental health outcomes for staff and volunteers in their service.
This guidance template provides ideas on how to better understand the impact that organisational policies may have on the psychological wellbeing of staff. The assessment helps you to reflect on how policies are designed, and ensure that policies have a positive impact on staff mental health – and avoid any potential adverse consequences.
Mind have collated a series of case studies which highlight some of the excellent work taking place across emergency services throughout the UK to support the mental health of staff and volunteers. Each one links to the Mental Health at Work Commitment, promoting shared learning and offering ideas to help embed best practice throughout the Blue Light community.
Blue Light Together will be closing on 31st July 2023.
Find out more about additional sources of mental health support for the Emergency Services