Together For Mental Wellbeing

Our work in suicide prevention

At Together the people who use our services are at the heart of everything we do. They influence and shape the support they receive from us, and the way our services are run. People often have a better insight into their own mental health and know when they are becoming unwell. Staff are vigilant when recognising warning signs of people becoming unwell or reaching a crisis point. Together staff take a multi-agency approach, working with people’s professional contacts and families where appropriate to ensure that they are supported effectively.

At Together, we use a number of processes to ensure that people have their say on what they want to happen prior to becoming unwell; these processes are part of our work in supporting people in their recovery and include a Staying Well Plan, Wellness Recovery Action Plan, Support Treatment and Recovery Checks, and a Crisis Plan.

When a person becomes very unwell or is a risk to themselves of others, this will require greater intervention. Depending on what type of service we provide to the person, we would either support people to access specific services or staff would contact them on behalf of the person.

Should a service user be affected by the loss of someone to suicide, staff support them to access support groups and bereavement counselling services.

For our own workforce we adopt an open culture where people feel safe to talk about their mental health, promoting a sense of togetherness. We talk about the importance of taking care of ourselves and the impact of stress within our teams. This provides a more supportive, understanding environment. Creating a positive, inclusive and more productive workplace for everyone.

Managers foster supportive relationships with team members and ensure workloads are manageable to reduce workplace stress, while providing specific support for those affected by suicide. This includes conducting employee wellbeing engagement surveys and encouraging staff to complete and share wellbeing action plans with their line managers.

We uphold robust policies promoting inclusion, diversity, and fair treatment. Senior managers lead by example, modelling healthy behaviours like work-life balance and taking regular breaks, while emphasising the importance of mental health. Employees are directed to seek support from their GP, our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), or through specialised counselling via our insurers. Reflective practice and debriefing sessions are facilitated by managers, and a dedicated staff member now offers reflective practice support to all employees.

Our current priorities

Our priorities include providing additional training for managers and colleagues to support bereaved employees, reviewing counselling service waiting times, and offering staff development in crisis planning, mental capacity assessments, and effective advocacy for at-risk service users.

We are reviewing a postvention framework which will provide appropriate wellbeing support for employees who have been affected by suicide and other traumatic events. Developing a bereavement policy to ensure bereaved employees are aware of and given the support they need, supporting these individuals in dealing with the shock and potential trauma they may experience. Staff are supporting the development in these areas.

Our current challenges

Demands for commissioned services to deliver more for less funding have continued to increase and can impact on work load pressures. We aim to gain a better understanding what else we can do, aside from utilising support from the persons General Practitioner (GP) and Together’s Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)to better support our workforce – this work is currently underway in consultation with staff.