Each year feels like we turn over new leaves and of course do some much needed pruning. This year in particular has been so much change. Our Mental Health First Aid Courses launched in January have seen 132 Mental Health First Aiders in the Workplace Trained. Each group have worked hard over the two days to equip themselves with the skills needed to intervene if someone is experiencing a Mental Health Crisis.
In addition to this training we have completed 82 participants through our half day Mental Health Awareness Course. We have worked with over 42 organisations and offered grants of over £1,600 so SMEs, sole traders and Micro-providers can attend the training.
We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and offer support and commitment towards Defence. In November we launched a new initiative bringing together the business and Armed Forces Community in Somerset. Members of the Armed Forces Community, specifically Veterans, Reserves, Military Spouses & Service Leavers were invited and 6 free places were allocated this is also part of our CSR commitment. Here are just a couple of the meany testimonials received.
Becky, This was a fantastic course, I now feel confident as a new mental health first aider, it was really good to attend this course along side civilians, it gave such a broad spectrum of experience and knowledge from the various people who attended the course. Nicola Edwards
Becky is an outstanding instructor who has delivered in spades. She gets the “big picture“ and has worked exceptionally hard in terms of connecting businesses with the military community. Finally, she is making a real difference and as such should be fully supported by the Defence Community. Mental health is the big issue of the day and must take the priority in terms of raising awareness, which Becky has made it her personal mission to up the profile of this devastating illness. Lt Col Retd Guy Benson Military Civil Integration Programme Lead Wiltshire Council
Something incredible always happens when you bring people from different backgrounds together with a common purpose and Mental Health is such a grounding way to understand each other.
We had a significant change in September when we left Purple Square HQ our offices for the past 2.5 years in central Bridgwater. I will miss hugely my companions there Barnaby Adams, Sarah Adams, Lyn Willcox and Dom the artist. It was a great base for us but we wanted to move onto a more rural space and no longer needed all the space. With this move came the launch of Rural Life Design. This move has enabled us to launch the Mental Health in Agriculture Group and look at Mental Health provision in rural Somerset. Already a new series of Podcasts have been developed with Jon Guard this year capturing this shift.
In March we won the Innovation is Business Award for Sedgemoor 2019 awarded by Lord David Triesman this was a huge recognition for our work in becoming a Reinventing Organisation with a new Teal structure. In November Becky was a finalist in the Outstanding Achievement Somerset Business Awards. This achievement was for her work in promoting Mental Health in Somerset.
Part of this promotion involved delivering a conference in Bridgwater on the 16th May entitled, “Mental Health At Work – Changing Culture in Construction.” This conference had been created by a small working party of interested volunteers from the construction industry.
The conference aimed to challenge the current culture around mental health inviting instead for it to be the main foundation upon which we construct a new culture. The conference brought together construction, mental health and community as a triangle of support upon which a new culture can start to breathe and take root.
The conference brought together local construction companies, mental health services, construction trades and community support services who exchanged and shared their experiences, and gave insights into how to start to change culture within their business making it a more mentally healthy environment to work in. Over 100 people attended and signed a giant pledge to continue to make a difference in their workplace.
Our counselling services for businesses have continued to be staffed by five therapists with 96% of clients rating us as very satisfied and 100% saying they would recommend us to others. Our Workplace Pop Up Wellbeing Clinics have increased in popularity as more and more businesses take on Workplace Wellbeing initiatives.
Our new website was launched thanks to Barnaby Adams at Cuckooo, Pam Knight from White Knight Marketing and Tim Church from Somerset Web Services
We have received good support from The Somerset Chamber of Commerce, The Bridgwater Chamber and are new members of the Taunton Chamber. I want to say such a massive thank you to all the leaves within New Leaf who work so hard to deliver the best service to our many clients, to all our supporters, mentors and those who believe in our pay forwards work knowing how much we support Mental Health Initiatives in the community we are truly grateful to you all.