Mental Health Wellbeing

Event: Mental Health Wellbeing

Venue: Quay Place, Ipswich

Time: 7.40am for 8.00am start, concluding by 9.45am

Speakers: Jon Neal (Chief Executive, Suffolk Mind) & Ian White (Managing Director, Beckett Investment Management Group)

I arrived at the venue at 7.30am to find that both speakers were already in place, breakfast rolls and refreshments were being prepared and a number of attendees had already arrived!

By the time that we started at just after 8am, we had nearly 50 (well fed) attendees and a real sense of interest in the room.

I introduced the event, explaining that I had chosen Suffolk Mind as my chosen charity to support through my Presidential year.

I explained that after discussions with Jon Neal we agreed that, whilst the CII would try and raise funds for the charity, our core goal was to build an ongoing partnership between our organisations. Whilst our local CII can raise funds and awareness for Suffolk Mind, the charity can help educate and support our CII members.

Jon Neal then addressed the event. He explained that Suffolk Mind aims to make Suffolk the best place in the world to talk about and take care of mental wellbeing. To support this Jon then spoke about recognising and meeting emotional needs which in turn facilitate mental wellbeing.

It is now recognised that there is a Mental Health Continuum with Wellbeing at one end and serious mental health issues like Psychosis and Schizophrenia at the other end. Stress, Anxiety, Depression, etc all appear in between. Whilst wellbeing may vary from time to time, Stress is recognised as the crossover point, moving from wellbeing into mental health issues.

What precipitates stress is unmet needs….

Food and drink, together with sleep and movement represent our physical needs for wellbeing.

Jon explained that there are a number of emotional needs that also need to be met:

• Security – a need for belonging; for a safe territory to aid development;

• Control – having some level of autonomy and the ability to make our own choices;

• Community – making relationships and being part of something bigger than ourselves;

• Status – feeling that we matter and that our opinions count;

• Privacy – having some time to ourselves for thinking, reflection, etc;

• Emotional Connection – having at least one other person who accepts us as we are;

• Attention – having someone pay interest in us; spend time with us

• Achievement – feeling that we have some skill or ability;

• Meaning & Purpose – looking after someone or doing something that makes a difference

Jon further explained that we have a number of innate resources which help is met our emotional needs; e.g. Pattern Matching, Rapport, Rational thinking and Imagination.

Ian White then spoke to the group about what he and his company have been doing to try and improve employee’s mental wellbeing, by considering the identified emotional needs.

Ian is a Suffolk Mind Trustee and his company has recently won the East Anglian Daily Times Medium Sized Business of the Year Award.

Ian and the Beckett Investment Management Group have introduced a number of initiatives to try and support emotional needs and improve mental wellbeing. Examples include walking meetings (movement), asking people to eat lunch away from their desks (privacy) and creating a forum for new employees to provide feedback on how things are progressing (community/status/attention).

Jon completed the event by explaining the “Human Function Curve” and showing that whilst we would all like to be in the “stretched/motivated” area where people are stimulated, learning and performing well, many will be “stressed” and could face burn out whilst others may be in danger of “rusting out” if they have low job satisfaction and are not being challenged enough.

In both case emotional needs are not being met.

There were a number of questions at the end and many people stayed behind to ask further questions of the speakers or just to network and catch up with others.

I personally found the briefing very informative and helpful (and have at least a couple of personal take-aways). I have already received some very positive feedback on the event and I am encouraging people to make contact if they have any ideas of what else we can do, working with Suffolk mind, over the coming months.

I would like to thank Jon and Ian for their time and insights, Jon’s team for hosting a great event and to all those who attended.

Richard Brame; President of the Insurance Institute of Ipswich, Suffolk and North Essex