Creating a supportive workplace
As an organisation and as a workplace, we’re committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our people. What does this mean in practice?
We are training our people to help them identify when colleagues may be struggling and take the next step to support them. It’s called Mental Health First Aid - and we’re pleased to have earned Gold Mental Health First Aid Australia skilled workplace accreditation.
This accreditation is a way of recognising organisations across Australia who invest in developing mental health first aid skills in their people and show a commitment to embedding the program into their culture. It also holds them accountable to ensuring the mental health and wellbeing of their people is a priority.
RACT Group Chief Executive Officer, Mark Mugnaioni, said, “We are one of just four organisations in Tasmania to have received gold accreditation, and across the country there are only 125 organisations that have this level of accreditation. We currently have over 40 staff being trained in mental health first aid and in time, we would like to see this training become as commonplace as any other first aid training.”
One-in-two Australians will experience mental ill-health at some stage, so this program is a valuable investment. RACT’s Safety and Wellbeing Advisor, Anita Williams, played an integral part establishing the focus on mental health first aid.
“There are so many reasons why I wanted to champion this training and accreditation for RACT,” Ms Williams said. “COVID-19 had such a big impact on people’s safety and wellbeing and I spent a lot of time supporting people who were struggling with changes to daily life, financial pressure and isolation.
“It made me realise that you can’t always see mental health 'injuries' and suffering.
"When I completed the training myself, I felt so much more equipped to have conversations to help support people in the workplace with mental health concerns and provide support and guidance for them to seek help they need.”
Accredited Mental Health First Aid instructor and founder of Rising Kind, Bec Thomas, worked with us to deliver the program, and said, “I would like to encourage other Tasmanian organisations to follow RACT’s lead in recognising this as equally as important as physical first aid in the workplace.”
Important note
If you or someone you know is in crisis and needs help, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.