The Shift Review Panel have published their independent review of the Mental Health Foundation's What Works for You? booklet for employers.

The Shift Review Panel assesses the quality and impact of materials designed to help employers promote mental wellbeing and manage mental ill health in the workplace. The panel is funded by Shift, but operates independently.

The review found that What Works for You?:

• explains simple steps people at work can take to support a colleague who is experiencing a mental health problem. It is easy-to-read and engaging and the advice is practical and relevant.
• It includes a short explanation about mental health, and more detail about some common mental health problems.
• There is practical advice about how to talk to someone, listening tips, responding in a crisis and keeping in touch when someone is off sick with a mental health problem.
• The brief section about what you can do as a manager provides some practical guidance on how to deal with someone they think has a mental health problem. It would be helpful to acknowledge in this section that there is much more that you need to do as a manager to support mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
• Overall, the booklet could provide a useful part of an organisations’ mental health management programme, but would probably need to be tailored to each organisation – for example, procedures around reasonable adjustments and Occupational Health advice would differ; and the image on the front would need to be less ‘industrial’ for some organisations. The resource should be made more generic, or alternatively targeted more specifically.
• The leaflet could be useful as a stand-alone item to help ensure people experiencing mental health problems get valuable support from their colleagues.
  

You can download the full review of What Works for You? here

Visit the What Works for You? page on the MHF website

Find out more about the Shift Review Panel here

Tags: shift, reviewpanel, scmh, employment, mhf, mentalhealthfoundation