Published:
4:57 p.m. September 3, 2022
Updated:
17:09 September 3, 2022
East of England Co-op staff have received mental health training from Suffolk Mind.
The retailer and the charity came together as a method of providing colleagues with the knowledge and skills to support the mental health of others.
The approach encourages employers to create workplaces that allow people to meet their emotional needs, such as control, community, and safety.
Jon Neal, chief executive of Suffolk Mind, said: “This work with the East of England Co-op goes beyond the standard response we see from some employers, to simply provide advice to employees, run a couple of wellness events and have some mental health first responders.
“The organization’s leadership has sent a clear signal to colleagues that they want to make a real difference by continually improving their workplace culture and empowering colleagues so they can better support one another.”
Suffolk Mind initially trained the senior leadership team and is now working with more than 200 line managers across the organization, which it says will create a cascading effect throughout the workforce.
In addition to line managers, funeral and security teams have received training because their roles often expose them to strong emotions, distress from others, and potentially difficult experiences.
Doug Field, Deputy Chief Executive of the East of England Co-op, said: “We want to be the best retail organization in our region for talking about and caring for mental health, providing our colleagues with a supportive environment to help them grow. .
“We live for the courage to be stronger together. By understanding mental health and wellness and having the confidence to have those conversations with our colleagues, together we can be unstoppable.”
Charlie Green, deputy director of education for Suffolk Mind, said it’s vital that everyone understand their emotional needs to support their well-being, and by normalizing conversations around mental health we can create a more mutually supportive environment.
He added: “We need to normalize mental health: we all have a brain, so we all have mental health.”
