JUST A THOUGHT

Joe Sabien, founder and CEO of the mental health charity Sea Sanctuary, explains the importance of focusing on employee wellbeing.

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When you think of good mental health, where does your mind go? Is it the people who seem to manage a busy lifestyle? The successful people in high-powered jobs? Those who always seem to be happy? Or the acquaintances living a seemingly perfect lifestyle according to their social media?

One thing the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted, is the fact that mental health is very important, and we all have it and need to look after it. Arguably, there’s never been such a time in recent years that we’ve had to be so aware of our own, and others’ health, both mental and physical. The pandemic really showed how many people faced some kind of struggle— even the people you might have thought of when I asked the question about what springs to mind when you consider good mental health. What’s more, the pandemic highlighted the people that were already struggling, and have been long before Covid hit.

We’ve built a charity from the ground up, based on one of Cornwall’s amazing natural resources, the sea. We believe in blue health, and the healing power of blue spaces, and time near them to improve wellbeing. Looking at Sea Sanctuary now and reflecting on how it started and where we’ve reached, I’m proud of the amazing achievements our team have made. More than that, I’m proud of how many people we’ve helped. Whether they’ve been close to a literal edge and talked down, let down by traditional mental health services for complex mental health problems, or young people passed around in a system that’s caused them additional trauma.

Moving into the future, the pandemic highlighted a few things to us here at Sea Sanctuary, too. We already had an awardwinning sailing programme, a G999 project working with Devon and Cornwall Police, individual therapy, and therapeutic art workshops, but maybe we needed to also focus on the trauma and wellbeing of people in other areas— such as the workplace.

Studies have shown time and time again that a happier workplace is a more productive workplace—so why aren’t we focusing more on this as employers?

Positive mental health in the workplace can help everyone—by showing support where people spend a lot of their time, we can help them build resilience, feel valued, and more equipped when faced with stressors and potential traumas and triggers in life. We wanted to work with more workplaces, to help their teams and improve the wellbeing of an organisation as a whole, and it begins with people in leadership recognising its importance. Work-life balance has been a hot topic in the last few years—people giving up the commute to work from home, being trusted to work hours that suit them, and workplaces putting in support systems to help everyone—whether they appear to be struggling or not. That’s one of the positive things about workplace mental health support—not everyone asks for help. How many people we’ve met willing to end their life feeling there’s no way out and haven’t been able to ask for help before. Supporting your teams whether they appear to need it, or not, opening the topic of conversation on mental health, and investing in their wellbeing is the key to breaking the stigma and equipping

To help their everyone with the skills they need to improve their wellbeing, inside and outside of the teams and improve workplace. Ultimately, the results speak for the wellbeing of themselves, helping inspire team members to bring their best selves to their work every day. an organisation As one of the most successful businessmen, Richard Branson, succinctly said: “Clients do as a whole not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”

Sea Sanctuary runs corporate sailing days on its stunning tall ship, Irene, and offers employee assistance programmes, and wellbeing champion training for businesses wanting to invest in employee wellbeing. Find out more at seasanctuary.org.uk or call 01326 378919.