Mental health awareness
Mental health is a crucial aspect of our overall well-being, enabling individuals to effectively cope with life’s challenges, realise their potential, learn, work productively, and contribute meaningfully to their communities. It plays a vital role in our ability to make informed decisions, cultivate relationships, and influence the world around us.
If you’re interested in exploring this topic further, we invite you to consider the following training options.
FACILITATED WORKSHOPS
Our workshops, facilitated by the Wellbeing and Safety team, can be scheduled to accommodate your team’s availability. Please email connect@unitec.ac.nz with preferred date and time.
And if it’s only you keen to attend, you can still email us. Once we have a minimum of eight registrations, we’ll arrange a cross-departmental session.
Please note that all three workshops are designed to be highly interactive and are best delivered in person.
Identifying poor mental health in ākonga – 90min long
Building on the mental distress programme we ran four years ago, this workshop invites you to explore your beliefs about mental health and learn how to identify those needing support. Whether interacting with students, colleagues, or whānau, you’ll learn to communicate in a supportive manner. Emphasis will also be placed on personal well-being and how to assist distressed students within boundaries of your role.
Target audience: This workshop is open to all staff but will be particularly beneficial for individuals beginning their mental health awareness journey.
Understanding stress and anxiety in ourselves and others – 60min long
As part of group discussions, highlighting diverse cultural perspectives we will develop an understanding of the physical cause and effects of stress on ourselves and others. This workshop covers the A,B,C,D’s of stress literacy, including:
• how stress relates to emotions, mental distress and our wider health
• the differences between good, bad and chronic stress
• daily practices that help address and balance effects of chronic stress
Target audience: This workshop is intended for all staff
Managing risks to mental health – 90min long
This workshop introduces you to structured framework for psychosocial safety in the workplace.
In order to foster the organisational culture that contributes to staff engagement and wellbeing, this workshop will:
• help you understand the three key categories of hazards to mental health
• give you the time to explore the potential risks and corresponding controls
• highlight what tools and support is available
By the end of the workshop, you’ll be familiar with language increasingly used by Health & Safety practitioners. This will be useful when contributing to Health & Safety risk audits at Unitec that include both physical and mental health components.
Target audience: This workshop is intended for People Managers or those engaging people to do work for Unitec.
Prerequisites: Basic understanding of stress and mental health
DO IT YOURSELF TRAINING OPTIONS
Emotional First Aid book
We sustain psychological injuries even more often than we do physical ones, and yet, even though there are scientifically proven techniques we could use to treat them, we don’t.
Why do we favour physical health over mental health? Is it simply because we don’t understand it as well?
Guy Winch, in his book Emotional First Aid, gives examples that parallel mental health to our knowledge of physical health. Even just browsing through the book and noting a couple of examples is a good start to developing this understanding. Copies of this book are available at our library. Check it out and tell us what you think!
Mental Fitness month – accessing webinar recordings
In case you missed it, there were four webinars throughout September’s Mental Fitness Month.
One of them featured guest speaker, Joe Nation, a Kiwi cyclist who recently battled lightning storms, freezing conditions and avoided being eaten by wolves, to win the grueling 2000-kilometre Silk Road Mountain Race.
The other sessions outlined a practical, daily routine filled with activities and habits to enhance mental resilience; as well as exploring the critical differences between mental fitness and mental health.
You can access recordings of these webinars via our Wellbeing platform, Taumauri.
If you haven’t signed up yet, follow these steps to get your free membership activated.