March On Stress

A great day at the March on Stress conference - Changing Landscapes: Mental Health at Work

Added on the 8th March 2023

It was great to get together in person for a day of learning at the third March on Stress conference – held in London on Tuesday, 28 February 2023.

The event ‘Changing Landscapes: Mental Health at Work’ brought together experts, experienced speakers and delegates from a wide range of occupations to focus on supporting mental health in the workplace.

At March on Stress, we believe that anyone in psychological distress deserves access to the right evidence-based support and care in their workplace.

We help organisations who share this belief to build resilience by safeguarding the psychological wellbeing of personnel through the prevention, detection and treatment of occupational and operational stress.

Georgina Godden, Business Development Director, said: “It was an honour to be joined by so many people from the organisations we have worked with, and hope to work with, to exchange knowledge, insights and to learn from each other.”

The event began with President of the Society for Occupational Medicine (SOM) Dr Shriti Pattani, giving a valuable insight into the role of occupational health in managing mental health within organisations.

Next up was Ryan Bradshaw, Senior Associate Solicitor from law firm Leigh Day. Ryan’s expertise was an excellent addition to set some context around the legal aspects of ensuring mental health support at work.

March on Stress Managing Director, Professor Neil Greenberg spoke next. Neil used his considerable expertise in trauma and occupational mental health to provide a briefing on the recently published guidelines into mental health at work from the World Health Organisation, for which he was one of the expert advisors.

David Trickey, a child trauma expert, presented a fascinating insight into traumatic stress exposure for children, including how this can affect into adulthood. With so many people in the room working in roles where exposure to trauma in their work is common, this was a highly valuable talk.

In keeping with the theme of trauma interventions, Major Amos Simms from King’s Centre for Military Health Research, gave an excellent briefing on iCover – a novel intervention to manage acute stress in highly challenging environments. Further details on this are available in a new paper in the BMJ – available here.

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of March on Stress, and it was a wonderful interlude to have a short history presented by our Senior Trainer Roy Scott MBE, including hearing from a number of organisations that we have been privileged to work with during this time in helping to support their people.

Next we moved on to hear about ‘healthy interventions’, firstly from Professor Dominic Murphy, of King’s College London and Combat Stress who spoke about moral injury in organisational settings. With many healthcare delegates in attendance, this was a very useful insight.

Dr Rosie Allister, from the charity Vetlife, then spoke expertly and compassionately on the topic of suicide postvention, imparting valuable learning from her experience in providing support after suicide in veterinary workplaces.

Moya Flaherty followed with a similarly expert and compassionate take on supporting TRiM Practitioners in her organisation, Northampton Hospital. It was a compelling listen and no doubt offered valuable advice for other TRiM Managers in the room.

The final section of the day brought further lived experience, spanning a range of industries. First of all we heard from March on Stress Clinical Services Manager Darren Smith, about the support that has been provided to TV production companies, as the industry increases it’s mental health support for reality TV participants.

Then Maria Aristides-Pickard gave an insight into the peer support journey at UK Border Force, and the range of support for their teams who routinely face challenging situations. Kevin Instance, a Volunteer TRiM Manager for RNLI and March on Stress trainer, followed with further experience of the RNLI in supporting it’s people. It was a great opportunity to hear these experiences and learn from what others are doing in support of staff that may experience trauma or potential trauma in their day-to-day work.

March on Stress Managing Director, Professor Neil Greenberg, said: “I would like thank all of our speakers and delegates for a wonderful day. We look forward to planning further events in the future so that we can continue to offer CPD opportunities and bring likeminded people together.”

If you would like to keep in touch about future March on Stress events, please contact info@marchonstress.com.

In terms of upcoming events, March on Stress will be at Health and Wellbeing@ Work on 14th-15th March 2023, at the NEC in Birmingham. Come and visit us at stand 140!

 

 

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