Our partnership with Mind UK
When we embarked on our partnership with leading UK mental health charity Mind UK in 2018, we set ourselves a £200,000 target, with all money raised going to support their Peer-to-Peer Support Service, which aims to empower people to use their own mental health experiences to help others either online or in a group setting, and includes a range of mental health boosting activities such as crafts, walking or meeting for coffee.
Across our sites, we’ve worked hard to raise as much as we can for Mind UK through a combination of colleague-led fundraising initiatives, such as summer barbecues, seasonal raffles, fun runs, bake sales and our site-based donation stations where colleagues can donate clothing and homeware to be sold in Mind UK shops.
This year, our colleagues have come up with fresh fundraising ideas and events, such as a Sports Day at our St Albans office, World Mental Health Day, Miles for Mental Health month in September and matched fundraising in March. With the amazing participation of each site, and the dedication of our network of Charity Champions, we have managed to reach our target of £200,000. We’re incredibly proud of all our colleagues for helping us achieve this fantastic amount.
When we partnered with Mind UK, we also wanted to use the collaboration to raise awareness of the importance of good mental health, to reduce the stigma around this topic within the workplace, and to help any of our own colleagues struggling with mental health problems. As signatories of the ‘Time to Change’ pledge, we have encouraged conversations around mental well-being and supported our colleagues with training in this area. This proved crucial in supporting our colleagues during the challenging Covid-19 lockdown where we were able to share tips and videos too boost moral and leveraged our network of Mental Health First Aiders.
In addition, this year we partnered with an independent Employee Assistance Programme, ‘Lifeworks’, which gives our colleagues free access to a confidential support service designed both to encourage mental wellbeing and to provide support with many of life’s challenges from physical ill health and depression, to a family bereavement or financial concerns.
Our partnership with Together for Short Lives
As our partnership with Mind UK concludes in May 2020, our Charity Champions have been busy selecting our new charity partner for the next two years. We are very excited to announce that we will be supporting Together For Short Lives, the leading UK charity for children and young people with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions, and their families.
Together for Short Lives provides a lifeline for those who care for seriously ill children and represents the 54 children’s hospice services across the UK. We’ll be working in partnership for two years to provide much-needed funds to hospices that are local to our sites, ensuring families in our nearby communities are supported and have access to the very best care that is available.