Adapt a long-term approach

It is important to acknowledge that mental wellness and support is an on-going journey, that your business community may need to build and maintain as a continuing practice. It can be difficult to know everything that can be covered to create a mentally healthy workplace and community.

In such an occasion, an integrated long-term approach may be helpful to help your business community to envision the life cycle of your mental wellness programs, and manage achievable goals on an annual basis. For this document, we have included an example of the integrated approach proposed by Heads Up Australia.

The model proposed three underlying stage of a mental health program:

• Promotion:  activities that improve awareness, connection, discussion on the topic of mental wellness, as well as initiatives include in your program
• Support: this is the stage where your programs are activated, initiatives are in action, and support is provided for your business community.
• Protection: this is the prevention and ongoing support measures, that through promotion and support, maintain the wellness your community achieved from your program.

Tip from Caloundra Chamber of Commerce:

“You're not going to have impact overnight, so don't expect for it to be a one-week blast and that's it. Yeah, we're definitely going to learn as you go. You're going to find things that work, you will find things that don't work. There’s going to be times where you're having conversations that you historically might not have been equipped to have or comfortable having. So it's a personal growth opportunity as well.”