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Everymind director Jaelea Skehan joined mental health experts, Government representatives and key industry partners at the recent NSW Government’s Mentally Healthy Workplaces Summit.
The two-day summit aimed to develop strategies for NSW that could be implemeted for the Mentally Healthy Workplaces Strategy.
Everymind said they welcomed the opportunity to be involved in the development of this Strategy as they are in partnership with icare foundation to develop a new evidenced-based response to the mental health and wellbeing of small business owners and workers in NSW.
“We will partner with small business and mental health partners in NSW to co-design a response that will reduce the onset and impact of mental health problems in those who work in small business,” said Skehan.
This will include:
- Research to better understand the nature of small business, risks to mental ill-health and opportunities for change;
- Prototyping and piloting a digital-based response in at least two communities in NSW to support workers in small business to access evidence-based prevention and treatment interventions that can reduce the onset and impact of mental ill-health and suicide; and
- Building partnerships and leadership across sectors for sustainable change.
According to Everymind small businesses bring significant economic and employment benefits to NSW and represent 97.6% of all active businesses.
“There are a number of unique risk factors faced by small business owners, which can result in poor mental health, poor general health and family conflict. Current workplace mental health programs tend to focus on larger organisations and industries and are not addressing the unique nature or the specific needs of small business,” said Skehan.
Everymind has launched a research survey for those working in small business to better understand the unique needs and to identify options for a new response.
Image sourced from Flickr cc: franchise opportunities