Employment and mental health

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kevin Friery on January 10, 2012 at 12:43pm

I would be both interested and excited to work with you on this.  I spend a considerable amount of my working life - and some of my social online life - addressing issues around making work possible, meaningful and sustainable for people with mental health problems and am keen to engage with the RSA in this area.  Do tell me more.

Permalink Reply by Stephen Johnson on January 10, 2012 at 12:52pm

I'm interested in working with you on this. I've worked in social enterprises with flexible policies on helping staff as well as working in mental health and wellbeing research. I'm also working with groups looking at how nature and the outdoors contribute to sense of wellbeing and reduced stress, depression and time off work.

Permalink Reply by Bobby Baker on January 10, 2012 at 1:28pm

Hello. This sounds exactly my cup of tea. Brilliant that RSA and you are focusing on this. I am sure there of others of us as above. I've not had time to get into RSA web stuff yet so am not sure how this works. I'm putting in a couple of links on both pages - to show the sort of work I'm doing with my ACE/NPO funded company Daily Life Ltd - and also where I personally come from as an 'expert by experience'. Looking forward to more! Bobby

http://onespot.wsj.com/politics/2011/10/10/d894f/bobby-baker-drawn-...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/oct/12/bobby-bakers-mad-gyms-a...

Permalink Reply by Emma Lindley on January 10, 2012 at 3:30pm

Hi Kevin, Stephen and Bobby,

Great - thanks for your replies. 

What I'm hoping for is that we'll be able to draw together expertise from across the RSA to develop a project which engages with the issue(s) of mental health and employment from a multi-disciplinary platform. 

I firmly believe that finding narratives and forms of expression/ communication which enable those without experience of mental illness to take empathic positions towards those who have is key to making progress here. It's partly this absence of emphasis on the personal which leads policy-makers to make mistakes and employers to be so negative and sceptical about mental illness.

In the first instance, the idea is to get a group of interested/ experienced fellows together (probably 10-15) for an initial scoping discussion. Is this something you would like to be part of?

Permalink Reply by Andy Gibson on January 10, 2012 at 4:05pm

Hi Emma, and everyone, thanks for posting. This is a topic close to my heart as well, and I'd be happy to be involved and bring some perspectives to this from our work at Mindapples, particularly on normalising the conversations around "mental health" and helping individuals understand their needs and others better. That's if the RSA isn't sick of the sight of me from all the other committees!

Permalink Reply by Emma Lindley on January 10, 2012 at 5:37pm

Thanks Andy - excellent that you've got an appetite for this. I'll be in touch with more soon.

Permalink Reply by Bobby Baker on January 10, 2012 at 5:42pm

Hello all

Yes - I would be very interested to be part of this. The statistic that Time To Change use in their campaign is 1 in 4 - its the current estimate of people who will experience something that could be classified as a 'mental health problem' in a year. So that means 1 in 4 fellows - 1 in 4 of all of us. And that means 1 in 4 people functioning at a pretty high level who cope in a variety of ways both constructively and not.

I completely agree that personal stories and accounts of living with mental illness or surviving it, as I have been fortunate enough to do, give great inspiration and hope to all. And it helps to reduce stigma and for people to be more open. So if there are other fellows like me who are happy to talk about personal experiences then that may help us. But maybe there are not so many people willing to be so glaringly open as me. It is a bit risky! But then - I am an artist after all.

Which brings me to the final point I would like to make - about the value of arts for mental health. I know there are lots of other great approaches but using the arts as a means to develop better communication and mutual understanding can significantly help the cause.

Permalink Reply by Andy Gibson on January 10, 2012 at 5:56pm

Arts and mental health - that's a whole topic in itself! I'm interested in the value of personal stories too. It may be worth approaching Jonathan Naess at Stand to Reason if you haven't already, he's someone I have a lot of respect for in this space and I think they're starting to do more work in this field again. Dr Rachel Perkins is another good voice in this space too. (If neither are fellows already, they definitely should be!)

On the "1 in 4" point, I think it's actually very important not to focus too much on the difference between the 1 and the other 3, and to talk instead about mental health and illness as a continuum. In an employment context, the debate tends to fall into disability rights models, because of the need to protect people and ensure fair treatment, but the other side of it is that we all have mental health, and we all have needs around maintaining that health at work. I'm interested in models which invite employers to make "reasonable adjustments" for the benefit of all their staff members' mental health and wellbeing, including those with experiences of mental illness and distress.

So I'd be very interested to hear everyone's thoughts on that.

Permalink Reply by Adrian Ashton on January 11, 2012 at 8:53am

as well as my own experinces of working in this field over the last decade or so, if you're not already aware of them, some great resources and case studies, etc relating to this issue that have already been developd ...

video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AduAsnWMjE&feature=plcp&con...

report - http://www.mhpf.org.uk/information-centre/publications/better-menta...

sector network (with lots of resources) - http://socialfirmsuk.co.uk/

Permalink Reply by Emma Lindley on January 11, 2012 at 2:10pm

Hi Andy - yes, know both Jonathan and Rachel and am on the case with pestering!

My friend and academic colleague Annie Irvine, based at the Social Policy Research Unit at York University, has done some great work in this space. She's argued employers should give the right to request flexible working to everyone, without having to medicalise it.  Annie’s research shows one of the problems with responding to mental health problems is that they have to be medicalised before anyone takes them seriously, and there’s a stigma around admitting to mental health problems (particularly at work).  If we want to stop problems building up, then getting employers to respond before difficulties become a medically defined ‘mental health problem’ is critical. There are real problems with language and stigma - people who are 'having a hard time' may well be experiencing what others would call 'mental illness' and there are pros and cons to labelling oneself or being labelled either way.

Andy Gibson said:

Arts and mental health - that's a whole topic in itself! I'm interested in the value of personal stories too. It may be worth approaching Jonathan Naess at Stand to Reason if you haven't already, he's someone I have a lot of respect for in this space and I think they're starting to do more work in this field again. Dr Rachel Perkins is another good voice in this space too. (If neither are fellows already, they definitely should be!)

On the "1 in 4" point, I think it's actually very important not to focus too much on the difference between the 1 and the other 3, and to talk instead about mental health and illness as a continuum. In an employment context, the debate tends to fall into disability rights models, because of the need to protect people and ensure fair treatment, but the other side of it is that we all have mental health, and we all have needs around maintaining that health at work. I'm interested in models which invite employers to make "reasonable adjustments" for the benefit of all their staff members' mental health and wellbeing, including those with experiences of mental illness and distress.

So I'd be very interested to hear everyone's thoughts on that.