Staff - Good to talk
Monday, March 4, 2019
Mental health in the early years has been pushed up the agenda. One nursery group is now paying for regular counselling for its staff. Meredith Jones Russell reports
One in four people in the UK is experiencing some form of mental health problem each year. The same proportion of the early years workforce is considering leaving the sector due to stress and anxiety, according to the Early Years Alliance. The body, which represents 14,000 settings in England, has teamed up with the DfE and Ofsted to tackle workload pressures on staff following its Minds Mattersurvey last year. Other groups are making attempts to tackle the problem – Portico Nursery Group has created a well-being policy, for example, while other settings have created an annual practitioner day to celebrate staff.
Honey Pot Nurseries in Liverpool has gone even further, paying for a counsellor to run weekly one-on-one sessions in sensory rooms for any staff members affected by mental health issues.
Jenna Geggie, director of the four Honey Pot settings, says addressing mental health should be a basic requirement of nursery managers.
‘We believe we have a responsibility to invest in the well-being of our workforce,’ says Ms Geggie. ‘Your workforce is your most important resource; without them you don’t have a business. With the best will in the world, if they are going through something personally, it will have an effect on their work.’
The nursery’s counsellor comes recommended by a senior manager, and confidential weekly sessions will be held in six-week blocks. Counselling will take place in the hour before lunch so staff have time to wind down before returning to rooms. A review at the end of six weeks will decide whether further support is necessary.
‘Many people can be reluctant to approach their GP, and if they do they often find themselves on endless waiting lists,’ says Ms Geggie. ‘They may not be able to afford private help, so we wanted to skip that whole process for them and identify right away if they need support.’
The nursery group was moved to address its approach to mental health at the end of 2018, when a usually reliable staff member did not turn up to work.
‘It was odd and completely out of character,’ explains Ms Geggie. ‘A colleague eventually told me she’d been worried about this member of staff as she had been struggling with depression. She was eventually signed off from work to receive treatment. We didn’t have a company mental health policy at the time, and it got us thinking.’
Senior management at Honey Pot got in touch with mental health campaign Time to Change, which runs a pledge signed by over 900 UK employers committing to support mental health issues in the workplace. Time to Change has found that while mental ill-health is the leading cause of sickness absence in the UK, 95 per cent of employees calling in sick with stress give a different reason for missing work.
Honey Pot found that just 37 per cent of its staff who took sick leave in 2018 directly cited some form of mental health issue, and suspected many more employees must be covering for mental health problems.
As a result, Honey Pot asked Time to Change for help devising an action plan for change. The plan included:
- running a ‘stress survey’ of staff to identify levels and causes of stress
- training managers in ‘first-aid for mental health’
- training staff to spot signs of mental health problems in colleagues and provide support
- running ‘Time to Talk’ events to share experiences and raise awareness of mental health
- enrolling managers on cognitive behavioural therapy courses
- setting up free yoga sessions for staff
- asking all staff to contribute to a mental health policy.
The stress survey carried out by Honey Pot discovered one in three staff had a mental health problem – higher than the national average.
‘Our staff come from all over Liverpool, many areas of which are very deprived,’ explains Ms Geggie.
‘Child poverty affects one in two in some places, higher than the one in three country-wide. Of our 100 members of staff, 98 are women and they are predominantly in their early 20s. These are demographics more likely to be affected by mental health problems.’
At the nursery’s first ‘Time to Talk’ event, senior managers decided they would share their own mental health struggles to encourage staff to do the same.
‘We were surprised by how many of us had dealt with some kind of problem before and realised if we had, there was a high chance staff had too,’ Ms Geggie says.
‘Afterwards, we had staff opening up to us themselves. One told me she had been on medication but hadn’t wanted to say anything in case she was deemed unfit to work. Another told us as a result of the event she had booked an appointment to see a GP.
‘We have run loads of projects, but it’s safe to say nothing on maths and English has been as well-received and had such an effect on staff as this.’
It’s still early days for the project – the nursery is still working to complete all the points on the action plan, while the counselling sessions have just launched. Time will tell how popular the offer will be.
‘Of course, our counsellor has a workload capacity, and she can only take a certain number of people,’ acknowledges Ms Geggie. ‘We concede there may be higher uptake than we can provide for straight away, but they should have a significantly shorter wait than they might get on the NHS, and it can all be provided during work hours, on work premises, but with someone completely independent.’
Ms Geggie also says the approach may not suit all settings.
‘I wouldn’t want other nurseries to think there hasn’t been a cost’ she says. ‘The counsellor will be £30 per hour and of course all settings are in different financial situations. But it’s always possible to make changes. Simply sharing our experiences has made the biggest impact on staff so far, and that cost nothing. Talk breeds talking.’
Case study: a Honey Pot staff member
‘I have suffered on and off with mild depression. I recently sought help from my GP who prescribed antidepressants, but at work I chose to keep it to myself. I guess I was worried people might think differently about me.
‘I attended the Time to Talk event in February. A group of senior managers spoke about experiences including anxiety, post-natal depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It was the first time any of us had heard they have their own struggles. I could see many of them were exceptionally nervous and it must have taken a lot of courage to speak so personally and frankly. I couldn’t believe people who seem to have everything together could be suffering too.
‘At work the next day I opened up to my line manager, who spoke at the event, about my depression, and she said she was so glad I had told her.
‘Honestly, I am so glad I did too. I felt I was carrying around a secret and now I know depression is nothing to be ashamed of.
‘My manager suggested we meet fortnightly for a catch-up, but I know I can move this to weekly if I want. My medication is keeping my depression under control at the moment, so I’m feeling good. I am considering attending the counselling sessions to explore the life event which triggered my depression. I feel like just knowing I’m not alone is a huge relief and weight off my shoulders.’