Advocacy Focus celebrates awards

Advocacy Focus is celebrating being awarded Top Employer in Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing Index, and for the third year running, Gold in its Workplace Wellbeing awards.

119 employers took part in the mental health charity’s Index, its benchmark of best policy and practice in workplace wellbeing. The Gold award recognises Advocacy Focus for successfully embedding mental health into its policies and practices.

To demonstrate its long-term, in-depth commitment to its team’s mental health, a variety of approaches have been taken. A wellbeing room has been created where employees can relax and take time out in a safe space. There is a wellbeing hour encouraging them to take paid time away from work to focus on self-care. Activities are organised, wellbeing walks, online catchups where all employees are welcome to attend, along with their much-loved canine friends.

With governments across the UK making changes to the rules and the levels of financial support available related to Covid-19, research shows that more than half of the 41,927 employees across the 119 employers are more anxious as they return to the workplace.

Regardless of the size of an organisation, mental health and a strong cultural response to workplace wellness should be high on the agenda. That’s why Advocacy Focus has joined other forward-thinking employers and taken steps to create mentally healthy workplaces by participating in the Index 2021/22. 

Justine Forster, CEO, Advocacy Focus said: It is fantastic we have been awarded Top Employer in Mind’s Index and Gold in its workplace wellbeing awards. We have a really committed team which works very hard, doing a difficult job. They are out in communities, working with people who are having the most challenging of times. So as an organisation our aim is to help and support the team to turn up as the best version of itself. We do this by normalising the conversation around mental health and wellbeing and by providing safe, non-judgemental workspaces.

“The world we live in is ever-changing and the team that turns up at the door to do the job is experiencing challenges never faced before. We don’t tick boxes, workplace wellbeing is not tokenistic at Advocacy Focus, it is an integral part of what we do and what we will continue do in the future.”

Emma Mamo, head of workplace wellbeing at Mind, said: “We’re thrilled to recognise Advocacy Focus as Top Gold employer at Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing Awards 2021/2022. Over the last three years that they have taken part in our Index, they have gone from strength to strength when it comes to promoting and prioritising the mental health of their staff.”

Advocacy Focus exists purely to make a positive difference to the lives of people in our community who would benefit from having a voice that may otherwise struggle to get heard. To learn more about Advocacy Focus go to: https://advocacyfocus.org.uk/