The idea of celebrating anything during 2020 may seem a challenge for many! However, it just might be what we need – to celebrate all those ‘small wins’ we’ve made, when the world stood still, and all became quiet for a time.
Both the team and volunteers within TtCW had to adapt to new ways of working in April, in order to continue pressing forward with our anti-stigma and discrimination campaign. Indeed, more so than ever, we knew that people needed to hear the message that ‘it’s OK to not be OK’, to reach out and ask for help and to check in and support those around us – our family, friends and colleagues.
So, celebrate we will, and be thankful for our Champions who had to face the brave new world of Zoom, Teams and pre-recorded presentations. Champions who wrote blogs and spoke up in the media, who presented at Wales-wide conferences and continued to learn and grow with the campaign. We celebrate all those businesses who recognised the vulnerability of their staff at this time and have worked with us to become Pledged Organisations and to provide Employee Champion training in order to step up and challenge mental health stigma in the workplace.
We celebrate the fun, laughter and tears shared together during our weekly Champion ‘Cuppa & Chats’. We celebrate the e-newsletters created for both Champions and Employers as well as our Network Events – where we have share personal stories, best practice, and knowledge with each other. We celebrate the ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ throughout our social media platforms enabling thousands of views and of course our short TV adverts seen throughout the country during Men’s Mental Health Week – which enabled one viewer to reach out to us, asking how they could help.
So we choose to celebrate, with a grateful heart, and look forward to 2021 with renewed vigour in working in partnership with Champions and employers alike to change the way we think about, to change the way we speak about and to change the way we treat those with mental health conditions.
These statistics reflect our work from April – 12 November 2020:
