25% of people in the UK will experience a mental health issue each year. Take a quick look around you now – between you and the three people closest to you – one of you is likely to have dealt with or be dealing with anxiety, stress, depression, eating disorders, self-harm or any other mental health illness.
In addition to my day job as the Head of Customer Success at Avecto, I spend lots of my spare time around the office working as part of our dedicated and energetic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team.
One small part of our CSR mission is to work closely with local charities to provide much-needed support. We took nominations from employees at Avecto to discover which causes were close to their hearts – What did people believe in? What had people been affected by? What would people rally together to support? Overall most identified with the issue of mental health, so we decided to support local mental health charities in each of our offices across the globe. This year we are working with: Stockport Mind, NAMI Mass, and Beyond Blue in our UK, US, and Australian offices respectively.
A big part of supporting a mental health charity (aside from the usual fundraising efforts) is working to promote good mental health, and stamp out the stigma associated with mental illness.
I am pleased to see at Avecto a modern move towards talking openly about the problems surrounding mental health. We are promoting good mental health within the workplace via a number of measures; informative posters, wellbeing weeks, open dialogues on the subject, and we are having lots of fun getting together and taking part in events to raise money to hit our ambitious fundraising targets for the year.
The world in general has a long way to go before mental health is treated in the same way as physical health, but it’s reassuring to know that we are trying to do something to help those that are stigmatised, ostracised, or struggling alone. Particularly at this time of year, with the pressures we may feel at Christmas, the stress of money being tighter than it normally is, the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or loneliness that can be highlighted at a time where love, giving and joy are generally rife – a focus on supporting mental health charities is ever pressingly important.
Learn about some of our CSR activities via our Facebook page and for more information or help with mental health issues visit any of our charities’ websites.