Mental Health
At the BFPA, we understand the need for members to prioritise the wellbeing of employees and understand the challenges we all face in today’s demanding work environment. This is why we are delighted to announce that we are extending our partnerships with other interested parties by supplying resources to help support those in every day to day life.
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.
Mental health is incredibly complicated, which is experienced differently from one person to the next, with varying degrees of difficulty and distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes. Mental health conditions include mental disorders and psychosocial disabilities as well as other mental states associated with significant distress, impairment in functioning, or risk of self-harm. People with mental health conditions are more likely to experience lower levels of mental well-being, but this is not always or necessarily the case.
Why employment matters to health
As adults in employment, we spend a large proportion of our time in work, our jobs and our workplaces can have a big impact on our health and wellbeing. In fact, employment can impact both directly and indirectly on the individual, their families and communities. Therefore, work and health-related worklessness are important public health issues, both at local and national level.
There is clear evidence that good work improves health and wellbeing across people’s lives, not only from an economic standpoint but also in terms of quality of life. ‘Good work’ means having not only a work environment that is safe, but also having a sense of security, autonomy, good line management and communication within an organisation.
As part of our the BFPA social responsibility programme we have chosen to give financial support to CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably, for men aged 15 to 35) did you know that 125 lives are lost every week to suicide. And 75% of all UK suicides are male? More information on this organisation can be found at www.thecalmzone.net
There are of course other well established organisations who are doing great work in supporting mental health and wellbeing we have therefore enclosed a very small selection that you may want to look at for further information and guidance.
www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-health-and-work
