Mental Health Awareness Week

Miriam
-
May 20, 2020

This week we celebrate Mental Health Awareness Week, an annual campaign organised by the Mental Health Foundation, which has become an even more significant issue during these trying times when we’re faced with the combined impact of a global pandemic, working from home, lockdown, not seeing our relatives, so many video calls... Maintaining good mental health is essential to cope with all sorts of problems we face on a daily basis, so this year we’re especially eager to offer as much support we can to our team and share the resources we’ve found helpful.

This year, the Mental Health Foundation has chosen “kindness” as its topic, due to its singular ability to unlock our shared humanity. Kindness strengthens relationships, develops community and deepens solidarity. It is a cornerstone of our individual and collective mental health. Wisdom from every culture across history recognises that kindness is something that all human beings need to experience and practise to be fully alive.

Some exciting recent news! As part of our commitment to Mental Health Awareness, we have also signed up to be a founding partner for Safe in Our World's new campaign to #LevelUpMentalHealth. #LevelUpMentalHealth's mission is to unite the games industry to support not only the mental health of our players, but that of the teams who build the worlds we play within. By partnering, we are continuing to commit to supporting mental health awareness and good practice at Mediatonic, and across the games industry.

At Mediatonic, we believe in a workplace where everyone can thrive and feel supported, not just this week but every day, so we're excited to set up several activities and initiatives to promote a positive attitude to mental health this week, as well as more long-term resources for our teams due to current lockdowns across the globe. We hope that by sharing this with the wider industry, it may help other teams in similar situations (check out our resources links at the end of the post too!).

Resources we already have and will continue regardless of this week:

  • We have a Workplace Mental Health & Wellbeing support page on our company intranet, Tonic Towers! It has links to great support websites like CALM, MIND and Samaritans and helpful videos.
  • We have several people trained as Mental Health First Aiders who are available whenever our people feel in need to talk. We also have scheduled Time to Talk sessions with them one afternoon a week!
  • Two, one-hour Meditation sessions a week, a new edition since lockdown!
  • We have an amazing Personal Assistance Program for employees. They can get the emotional, financial and legal support they need through some available resources, confidentially and at no cost for the employee.
  • Due to the current lockdown situation for coronavirus, we shared some resources a while ago about support on Covid-19, anxiety, tips for staying healthy and social distancing.
  • Our line managers have also been checking in more regularly with Tonic folks, and creating new systems and spaces for people to chat and connect while we’re all apart.

What we are planning specially for the week:

  • We will be sharing some helpful videos or resources daily about mindfulness, relaxation or taking a break, as well as the “cute pet of the day”, along with a positive message to make our people begin their day as cheerful as possible! Today’s quote of the day is: You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
  • As this year’s theme is kindness, we have set up a Slack channel for people to thank and celebrate their colleagues and send them all the love!
  • We want to encourage everyone to write a gratitude journal during this week, just writing about the things they’re grateful for! Personally, I’ve started to write some thoughts in a notebook and I’ve found it very useful to deal with the anxiety I’ve had for some years now.
  • And maybe a few little surprises :)
Our team of Mediatonic Mental Health First-Aiders!

Further resources:

As this year’s theme is kindness, why not take a look at these TED talks about the power of kindness and how it can change your life:

I also want to share some useful resources for mental wellbeing:

I hope you find this blog useful and helpful! In the words of the greatest wizard of all times, Albus Dumbledore, remember: 

“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
Want to join in? Make your pledge at safeinourworld.org/level-up

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