Why firms should turn to experts for mental health support

Psychologist and psychotherapist Charlotte Armitage has launched Outsourced Psych – a flexible provision for businesses to ensure their employees have access to qualified and trained mental health professionals – after becoming concerned about inadequate care. Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Ms Armitage said: “If employers are doing the job right and they are looking after the wellbeing of their staff it is ultimately going to help them and their organisations because a happy workforce is more content and more productive. “If you’re looking after your employees then you need to send them to professionals who are trained and equipped to deal with the information that they might be hearing.” While the rise of mental health first-aiders has helped raise awareness of mental health in the workplace, Ms Armitage believes it’s dangerous just relying on them to help employees overcome issues. She says it could not only see the person seeking help not getting the right level of support but also lead to the first-aider becoming overburdened. “It’s not like how it would be with first aid,” Ms Armitage said. “Mental health is always much deeper than we think. How we think, behave and interact day-to-day is based on our whole life experience. That’s really deep and complicated.” Ms Armitage is working with six mental health professionals to provide tailored support packages to organisations that sign up to Outsourced Psych. She said: “I’ve got six at the moment but I also have lots of other people interested in doing work. “It depends on what the organisation needs. If an organisation says bring someone to us, we’d say they’d really benefit from a certain type of therapy, then we would use a specialist who does that.” Outsourced Psych will also offer return-to-work packages, where it will assess mental health and wellbeing requirements ahead of people returning to work. Ms Armitage said: “People are coming out of this Covid-19 situation. “Everyone has had a different experience and people are going to have different attitudes to returning to work and that needs to be managed in the most effective and gentle way possible. “We don’t know what people will have been subject to throughout this period. Some people might have gone through bereavement, some people might have gone through illness, some people might have gone through a really traumatic time. “They might have found it really difficult isolating on their own or isolating with a partner or isolating with family. We don’t really know. “People are all going to have different experiences. Now more so than ever people are going to be needing support in the workplace.” The entrepreneur says staff turnover, sickness and lost productivity resulting from poor mental health cost UK employers £42bn last year. Ms Armitage says that mental health issues can also lead to staff reporting more physical problems as well. She said: “Poor mental health can actually cause so many physical illnesses. “People will be having time off. They may report it as a physical complaint but it could well be related to mental health and the individual might not even know that it’s related to mental health. “If you want people to function at their optimum you need to be looking after their psychological health." YAFTA set to start rolling again Charlotte Armitage turned to acting to help her cope with the stresses of life. It led the entrepreneur to setting up the Yorkshire Academy of Film and Television Acting (YAFTA) – an acting academy and talent agency. YAFTA is preparing to reopen its doors after having to shutter as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Ms Armitage said: “We’re actually opening our doors at the weekend, which I’m really happy about. “We’ve just got to see how that goes. “We’ve obviously put in all of the measures and the changes. We’ve implemented all the safety regulations that we need to.”