World Mental Health Day takes place on 10th October 2022. On this day, Applied Driving Techniques’ partner, Jacobs, is inviting everyone to participate in reaching out to one million lives. Jacobs’ hope is for the ‘World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in’.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched a campaign of ‘Making Mental Health & Well-Being for all a Global Priority’. The campaign is a chance for those with mental health conditions, advocates, governments, organisations and other stakeholders to recognise progress in this field and to be vocal about what else needs to happen to achieve this goal.
With programs like BeyondZero, Jacobs is renowned for making the health, safety and wellbeing of its people a priority. Mental health is no exception and sits at the core of Jacobs’ One Million Lives campaign.
World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-In
10th October 2022
The free mental health check-in tool was created to help enhance users’ understanding of their current state of mind and provide proactive strategies for personal mental health development. It’s accessible to everyone — no matter where they live, who they are or what organisation they work for. This October’s World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in is an opportunity and reminder for people to hit pause for a moment and come together to check-in on their mental health. By completing a check-in, people will ideally be better equipped to understand how they are currently coping, assess the early indicators of associated mental health challenges, start positive and active conversations and get support much earlier.
“Our goal is to break down the barriers that hinder honest conversations about mental health and encourage an open culture of support,” explains Paul Hendry, Global VP for HSE at Jacobs. “We also want to leverage our extensive networks and create a ripple effect around the globe on World Mental Health Day. We have reached out to our competitors, investors, clients, partners and likeminded organisations to encourage them all to come together as one to take part in the ‘World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in’.”
Adversity and difficulty are part of a normal life, but pressures can lead to stress and impact our ability to cope when demands are overwhelming. Taking a regular mental health check-in and developing appropriate coping mechanisms helps us gain better awareness of protective factors, learn new ones, and develop resiliency.
Jacobs has a history of supporting its people through its Mental Health Matters programme. With over 2,000 employees across the globe trained as ‘Positive Mental Health Champions’, the company regularly hosts ‘Mental Health Resilience’ calls covering a wide range of topics which have helped its people navigate the challenges of the pandemic, cope with psychological distress and grief, and manage fatigue to name a few.
“Over 5,000 of us came together on our latest One Million Lives global resiliency series”, recalls Hannah Waters, the company’s Global VP for Wellbeing. “These calls have been a lifeline for our people throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and continue to go from strength to strength. The feedback we receive is open and honest and our people are grateful to have an outlet to share their hopes and fears around a certain topic which can sometimes be difficult to talk about.”
The aggregated, anonymous data gained through these resilience calls and through One Million Lives helped Jacobs make informed and data-driven decisions in response to employee needs. This was the motivation to make One Million Lives a free resource not only to their people but to families and friends, clients, cities, communities – everyone.
However, this campaign is not just about a mental health tool, it’s about bringing people together using a combined passion to make a difference. The One Million Lives campaign does just that with organisations across the world coming together with a common goal to ensure mental health and wellbeing become a global priority for all. Other organisations involved include FormScore, OneWish and #samehere
Whether you use One Million Lives, #SameHere, FormScore, PepTalk or any other mental health check-in tool, on the 10 October you are invited, along with your friends, colleagues and families to take part in the World’s Biggest Mental Health Check-in to help make mental health and wellbeing a global priority.
