Your how-to: Establishing a mental health crisis response plan
Establishing a mental health crisis response plan within your company is a proactive strategy to anticipate, manage, and respond effectively to mental health issues or crises that may affect your employees. This plan consists of initial steps which include gaining a thorough understanding of mental health issues, recognising their potential impact in the workplace and designing procedures to both mitigate the risk and deal with any incidents that occur.
It is a collaborative effort involving your HR team, managers, and if feasible, mental health professionals. It serves not only as an essential component in protecting your employees' wellbeing but upholds your business's legal obligations under the Australian Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws. Under these laws, all employers are required to ensure their workplaces are physically and mentally safe and healthy for all employees.
Step by step instructions
Understand Mental Health Issues and Their Impact: Equip yourself with a thorough understanding of mental health issues. Study common mental health disorders and their symptoms. Familiarise yourself with the mental health landscape in Australia, the prevalence rates, and the impacts on individuals and workplaces. Understanding these issues will aid in recognising mental health crises in your company.
Draw up a Draft Plan: Based on your understanding and risk assessment, draft an initial mental health crisis response plan. This plan should cover the procedures to be followed when a mental health crisis occurs, including the reporting and documentation process, emergency contacts, immediate response measures and long-term support mechanisms for affected employees.
Train your HR Team and Managers: Ensure that your HR team and managers are well-equipped to implement the plan. Conduct training sessions and workshops to ensure they are proficient in recognising symptoms of mental health issues, understanding how to respond in a crisis, and knowing when to activate the mental health crisis response plan.
Regularly Review: Mental health is an ongoing concern in the workplace. Therefore, regularly review the effectiveness of your plan and adapt it where needed over time. Regular reviews ensure that your plan remains appropriate and effective in managing the current mental health environment in your workplace.
Conduct a Risk Assessment: Analyse the current mental health environment in your workplace. Identify the potential risks and stressors that could contribute to mental health issues. These might include workload, pressure, work-life balance, interpersonal relationships and workplace culture.
Collaborate with Mental Health Professionals: If possible, collaborate with mental health professionals to refine your drafted plan. They can provide expert input, ensuring that your procedures are effective and in line with best practice.
Communicate the Plan: Communicate the finalised mental health crisis plan to all employees within the company, ensuring they are aware of its existence and understand how it works. This could involve email communication, team meetings, informational events, and ensuring a copy of the plan is easily available to all staff.
Reflect and Breathe: This step can be challenging, so it's important to take a moment to breathe and reflect. Pause to consider the progress made, the obstacles encountered, and the lessons learned. This reflection will not only help in gaining clarity but also in maintaining a balanced perspective, allowing for thoughtful and deliberate decision-making moving forward.
Use this template to implement
To ensure you can execute seamlessly, download the implementation template.
Pitfalls to avoid
The Fair Work Act 2009 specifies that Australian employers have a responsibility to ensure the health and welfare of their employees, including their mental health. Ignoring this law when creating your mental health crisis plan could have legal implications and undermine the trustworthiness of your organisation. Ensure your policies align with Australian legal and labour guidelines.
In dealing with mental health crises, specialised training is paramount. A common mistake is to assume that standard first aid training or human resources support is sufficient. Invest in a proper mental health first aid training to equip your staff effectively.
Australia prides itself on being a multicultural nation. A mental health crisis plan that doesn't cater to cultural, linguistic, and social differences may alienate some employees and cause the strategies to fall flat. Embracing culturally sensitive practices will enhance the inclusivity and effectiveness of your plan.
It's often easy to overlook the importance of involving employees in forming the crisis response plan. However, neglecting their input can result in an unworkable and ineffective design. Including employees not only encourages buy-in and support, but their front-line experiences can offer invaluable insights.
Another pitfall is failing to commit adequate resources to support the implementation of the plan. This can range from appointing dedicated personnel to manage the mental health programme to sufficient financial allocation to ensure efficient rollout and sustainment.
It's detrimental to formulate an ‘umbrella’ crisis strategy and hope it addresses individual needs. Tailoring strategies using an employee-centred approach will drive the success of your mental health crisis plan.