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CWU's Steve Jones Supports Mental Health Composite At Labour Party Conference 2021 Composite Motion 12 at last weeks Labour Party Conference drew support from across the party constituencies, dealing as it did with mental health at work.
Identifying poor mental health as being one of the great scourges facing workers in the UK, Steve seconded the composite motion from USDAW on mental health. He told Conference of his 'light-bulb' moment: when a 26 yrd old rep told a CWU Education event that following his Mental Health First Aid training, he approached three of his workplace colleagues he was concerned about, and asked them had they ever thought of talking their own lives. It turns out that he was right on all three counts. Steve said that this led him to ask what sort of support do we give to our 750 or so reps across the country to recognise and deal with such circumstances in the event of workplace colleagues suffering silently?
Following the setting up of a network of ten Regional Lead Mental Health reps that check in regularly and support one another, twelve Mental Health First Aid Tutors have been trained using the Union Learning fund. Meanwhile, two of our North West CWU Area Safety Reps are doing a national virtual tour delivering individual stress awareness workshops and have just completed a whole workplace stress risk assessment; which provides proactive support for Reps in helping to manage individual and local workplace mental health risks. Due to the work being done with Royal Mail, commencing next week a trial in training CWU reps and managers to become Mental Health First Aiders, and if successful, will change the culture and wellbeing in some 1,500 workplaces within Royal Mail. Steve concluded by saying that everybody knows someone affected by bad mental health. They could be a family member or a friend or work colleague. He told Conference that if you know of anyone suffering to please trust your instincts; you will rarely be wrong. He also reminded conference that the country is facing an urgent mental health crisis of a scale never been seen before and it needs a political and industrial solution. The Terms Of Composite Motion 12
Source: Labour Party / Steve Jones / Unionsafety
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Steve Jones, National Executive member of the CWU spoke on the motion, providing detail of the work currently being done by CWU to train up and support workplace Mental Health Advisors.