How can charity leaders help one another with their mental health and the wellbeing of their teams?

As a charity that supports emotional wellbeing, we don’t just do this for those that access our services, but we also aim to do it for staff. This includes volunteers, trustees, front line practitioners, administration support, marketing, senior leaders – everyone.

Yesterday, our CEO Michelle Hill attended the second ACEVO and Mental Health First Aid England working group on workforce mental health. The group which is chaired by Jules Hillier (CEO, Pause) will address the growing concern many social sector Chief Executives have over the mental health of their teams.

Among Michelle and Jules, the group included; Simon Blake (Mental Health First Aid England), Maisie Hulbert (ACEVO), James Watson O’Neill (SignHealth), Becky Hewitt (Changing Faces), Sam Budd (Bristol SU), Lena Milosevic (Red Balloon) and Kathryn Rossiter (Thrive).

The group discussed a paper, put together by Jules following the first meeting, which aimed to describe the problem the group intended to tackle.

The paper considered:

• The vulnerability of the social sector workforce
• The impact of instability and periods of crisis in organisations
• The things that cannot be compensated for
• The balance of individual and organisational needs
• CEO self-care
• CEO skills and development

The group also looked through Mind’s Thriving at Work framework to identify gaps in support and resource and shared their own tools that have supported their personal or team’s mental wellbeing, of which the impact of personal relationships was key.

As an organisation, Michelle notes that we will be reviewing our organisational approach to mental health at work and also says;