The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is planning to pilot sustainable mental health training for line managers early next year.
Claire Renney, health and wellbeing manager at the NDA Group, told the London HR Connection about the organisation’s journey to improve mental health among its workforce and how the latest move fitted with that.
“We’re going to pilot this line manager training in the very early part of 2022 and this is for two particular cohorts – we have some line managers and some PHD students that we’re going to put forward,” she said.
“The benefit of this for us and for them is that it’s CPD accredited so we know that the quality of the content is validated and the delivery method is validated so we’re really looking excited to do this pilot.”
Mental health delivery group
Renney explained that in 2019 the NDA set up a mental health delivery group to discuss and formulate mental health initiatives.
Last year, the NDA decided to standardise its employee assistance programme and began working with Thrive – a game based app that helps users prevent and manage stress, anxiety and related conditions.
Renney explained the NDA loved that the app was NHS approved, that it aimed to detect and prevent mental health issues early on, and that staff can use it to manage their own health.
The NDA also hosts other wellbeing initiatives including Wellbeing Wednesdays, a Menohub – an open area for employees to share resources about menopause, and its Make A Change Challenge – an inhouse wellbeing challenge involving a series of physical, mental and creative challenges that staff can engage in.
Mental health first aid has already been rolled out across the group too.
“We went through really quite rigorous recruitment for our mental health first aiders working with Mind and we made sure that clinical supervision is really factored into their role,” Renny continued.
“We really upskilled them in their use of the EAP and Thrive and encouraged them to use the Thrive app so they can look after their wellbeing, recognising that you have to look after yourself before you can help others so keeping a really close eye on that community.”