Supporting Workplace Mental Health: learning from Living Well
blog | Words Laura Edwards | 10 Oct 2024
With the theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day being mental health at work, we’re sharing what we’ve learned about supporting the mental health workforce through Living Well.
More people than ever are not working due to ill health.
Those working within the mental health sector are not immune: the work of supporting others’ mental health can really take its toll. The most recent NHS staff survey found that over a quarter of the NHS mental health workforce often or always feel burnt out.
It should go without saying that everyone should be able to experience work-life balance and lead their own fulfilling lives. Yet, the wellbeing of a workforce couldn’t be more important when the work is supporting the wellbeing of others.
We hear so often that the relationship between a person accessing mental health support and a practitioner can drive quality mental health care. Mental health practitioners can’t build those trusted relationships and provide consistent support if they are themselves unwell. There is no getting away from the reality that supporting people with their mental health is emotional work – the NHS staff survey also found that over ⅓ of the NHS mental health workforce often or always feel emotionally exhausted. Through our work co-designing and spreading Living Well systems across the UK, we know that radically improving the experience of those accessing mental health support requires conscious design of services to protect the wellbeing of staff too.
Living Well systems are designed to support people whose needs are too complex to be met by GPs (primary care) but who are often excluded by the strict criteria and thresholds which determine who can access specialist support (secondary care). They treat people as citizens within communities, rather than as mental health patients, and embrace the whole person. They recognise that all aspects of our lives can impact our mental health, so feature multi-agency teams, including peer workers, and networks of support from across the local VCSE ecosystem, health, care, housing, debt advice, employment and other services. These teams collaborate; bringing together insights from social and medical approaches to improving mental health to provide holistic, person-centred care. In doing so, they put people’s strengths and lived experience at the centre. They are easy to access and localised; every area is different and so Living Well is different in every area. Most importantly, this approach works – an independent evaluation found that Living Well helps people to recover and empowers them to make improvements towards their own life goals.
As this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is mental health in the workplace, we wanted to share our learning from more than 5 years of co-designing, spreading and embedding Living Well systems across the UK. Here are some of the key features that are designed into Living Well systems in order to provide a supportive environment for those working in mental health.
Enable agency
“We have some prescribed processes but do not dictate fixed ways of working. Instead, we provide you with training, tools, and skills and trust you to make decisions and use your judgement to find creative solutions” – A local Living Well handbook
Holistic, person centred care cannot be delivered through guidelines and protocols. It requires trusting and enabling practitioners to use their skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the person that they are supporting. Living Well recognises that all aspects of life can affect our mental health – so Living Well systems all feature multi-disciplinary teams. These teams bring together the best of local services and providers across sectors; you’ll find NHS clinicians sat alongside peer workers and voluntary sector workers as they distribute and allocate people to whoever is most suited to support them. They operate with flattened hierarchies to enable collaborative working as well as to respect both social and medical approaches to supporting mental health.
Embed learning and development
Being able to consistently deliver holistic, person centred care requires a consistent investment in the training and development of staff. The multidisciplinary nature of Living Well systems provide an opportunity for shared learning and knowledge in a way not available where services work in silos. Across Living Well systems, you’ll find weekly spaces for reflective practice, daily ‘huddles’ of staff will have a learning theme once a week, and in areas like Greater Manchester, we support communities of practice where practitioners cross locality to learn and share ways of working. In Bolton, 100% of staff have gained new skills since starting with Living Well.
Foster peer support to share risk
“Although some members of our team may hold a caseload, we manage risks relating to safeguarding and mental health as a team” – A local Living Well handbook
Those working in mental health services know all too well the weight of the responsibility to safeguard and manage risk of those they are supporting. In Living Well systems, even where practitioners hold a caseload, the model has been designed to ensure that risk is shared across a team. Living Well systems feature huddles (daily and weekly) where practitioners are able to seek peer support, bring questions, and manage risk together. This approach has led to staff feeling more positive about their work. A 2021 evaluation of Living Well systems found that 76% of Living Well staff felt they would recommend their workplace to a friend or family member compared to 59% in the NHS staff survey of the same year.
Encourage work-life balance
Another feature of mental health services as a workplace is the impact that vicarious trauma can have on the workforce. Living Well systems feature psychologically informed supervision frameworks, including supervision led by clinicians, to enable staff to process their own working week. Access to this support is for everyone, regardless of role or employer. Similarly, huddles are held at the end of the day and week to make sure nobody goes home worrying about work..
Working in mental health is hard, emotional work. But, with the right systems in place to support staff – it can also be rewarding, fulfilling work that enables a healthy work-life balance.
We need to care for the mental health workforce – so that they can care for others.