Why I’m proud to be a mental health champion for my colleagues

To mark Time to Talk Day, Jo Sullivan, Engagement Officer for the CTM Research, Innovation and Improvement Co-Ordination (RIIC) Hub shares how she is supporting her team to look after their wellbeing.

Hello, I’m Jo, an Engagement Officer for the CTM RIIC Hub where I support with co-ordinating and aligning a range of interesting projects to improve health and wellbeing across the region.

For example, one of the innovative projects I have undertaken since joining the RIIC Hub was coordinating a team of non-clinical patient wellbeing practitioners for patients recovering from Covid-19 in Ysbyty’r Seren, a temporary hospital set up during the pandemic.

As the project closed and I returned to work more closely with the RIIC Hub, I noticed that we were all feeling the strains of working virtually from home long term. There was a danger of isolation, alongside the aches and pains that can emerge after a day sitting down.

Working with so many partners, we are lucky to have access to a wide-range of wellbeing resources including those provided by the Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board (CTMUHB) and Valleys Steps. The resources include wellbeing sessions, and tips and advice; great when we are working from home as we can access them at our desks.

As Christmas approached, we discussed as a team how we could improve our wellbeing in a different environment.

At the time, we’d been working with creatives to support people in our community to share their experiences through art, drama, and writing, and we felt this may benefit us too.

I approached Es George, Arts and Health Coordinator at CTMUHB who is passionate about using creativity to promote happiness, and asked if she could connect us to artists and writers who could facilitate a wellbeing morning for us.

During the morning, we were lucky to spend a few hours at Cynon Linc with Sue and Uschi, an artist and a writer, who helped us to express ourselves through crafts and writing. This really inspired some new ideas, and enabled us to understand how the people we were supporting through our work benefit from this type of workshop.

As a team, we continue to promote our wellbeing, and have open discussions with eachother.

We meet each morning for a check in, and connect on a team WhatsApp group.

We focus on work, but have shared a lot of supportive information on things like local beautiful places to walk, Netflix series and exercise regimes!

We laugh a lot in the middle of what seems a long period of working from home.