On 10 October 2022, to coincide with World Mental Health Day, Jacobs is inviting all organisations and industries to come together and join them in touching one million lives. The aim is to create the ‘World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in’. SHP hears more from Jacobs about the initiative…
WHO is working with partners to launch a campaign around the theme this year of ‘Making Mental Health & Well-Being for all a Global Priority’. This will be an opportunity for people with mental health conditions, advocates, governments, organisations and other stakeholders to come together to recognise progress in this field and to be vocal about what else needs to happen to achieve this goal.
Making mental health and wellbeing a priority for all is at the core of Jacobs’ One Million Lives campaign. The free mental health check-in tool was created to help enhance users’ understanding of their current state of mind and provide proactive strategies for personal mental health development. It’s accessible to everyone — no matter where they live, who they are or what organisation they work for. And this October’s World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in is an opportunity and reminder for people to hit pause for a moment and come together to check-in on their mental health. By completing a check-in, people will ideally be better equipped to understand how they are currently coping, assess the early indicators of associated mental health challenges, start positive and active conversations and get support much earlier.
“Our goal is to break down the barriers that hinder honest conversations about mental health and encourage an open culture of support,” explains Paul Hendry, Global VP for HSE at Jacobs. “We also want to leverage our extensive networks and create a ripple effect around the globe on World Mental Health Day. We have reached out to our competitors, investors, clients, partners and likeminded organisations to encourage them all to come together as one to take part in the ‘World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in’.”
Adversity and difficulty are part of a normal life, but pressures can lead to stress and impact our ability to cope when demands are overwhelming. Taking a regular mental health check-in and developing appropriate coping mechanisms helps us gain better awareness of protective factors, learn new ones, and develop resiliency.
Jacobs has a history of supporting its people through its Mental Health Matters programme. With over 2,000 employees across the globe trained as ‘Positive Mental Health Champions’, the company regularly hosts ‘Mental Health Resilience’ calls covering a wide range of topics which have helped its people navigate the challenges of the pandemic, cope with psychological distress and grief, and manage fatigue to name a few.
“Over 5,000 of us came together on our latest One Million Lives global resiliency series”, recalls Hannah Waters, the company’s Global VP for Wellbeing. “These calls have been a lifeline for our people throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and continue to go from strength to strength. The feedback we receive is open and honest and our people are grateful to have an outlet to share their hopes and fears around a certain topic which can sometimes be difficult to talk about.”
The aggregated, anonymous data gained through these resilience calls and through One Million Lives helped Jacobs make informed and data-driven decisions in response to employee needs. This was the motivation to make One Million Lives a free resource not only to their people but to families and friends, clients, cities, communities – everyone.
However, this campaign is not just about a mental health tool, it’s about bringing people together using a combined passion to make a difference. The One Million Lives campaign does just that with organisations across the world coming together with a common goal to ensure mental health and wellbeing become a global priority for all. Other organisations involved include FormScore, OneWish and #samehere.
“We are delighted to collaborate with the One Million Lives campaign to participate in the World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in,” said Eric Kussin, Founder & CEO of #SameHere Global. “At #SameHere our mission is to normalize society’s perception of mental health and make it part of our everyday conversation and taking a check-in on World Mental Health Day is a great way to facilitate these conversations. Using one of the tools establishes that we all have mental health, it lives on a continuum we are all fluctuating on and having common language and linearity on that continuum establishes consistency.”
Rob Stephenson, founder & CEO of technology company FormScore, an app and workplace platform that helps employees track and manage their wellness, is looking forward to being part of the initiative. “We are delighted to be working with Jacobs’ One Million Lives campaign to attempt the world’s largest mental health check-in. Now, more than ever, it is so important to reflect on our mental wellbeing.”
Finally, Louise Hoskings of Hosking Associates and Founder of oneWISH hopes the initiative can bring everyone together. “I would urge everyone to connect in with this global mental health check-in from wherever you are in the world and whatever you do. When we create strong psychological foundations, we create trust within our organisations and when we do this, we can work together to solve the very many and very real complex challenges facing the world today.”
Whether you use One Million Lives, #SameHere, FormScore, PepTalk or any other mental health check-in tool, on the 10 October you are invited, along with your friends, colleagues and families to take part in the World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in to help make mental health and wellbeing a global priority.
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
I believe the information provided with start to recognise people who could potentially be living with a Mental Health Issue and we could definitely work on this topic to help others who have been assessed for there predominantly mental health conditions please keep this topic at the front of dealing with this issue.
How we can share in this event?
Hi Sultan, you can complete the mental health check-in on the One Million Lives website