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How to run a mental health awareness session with your team

Published May 19, 2025

In the UK the cost of poor mental health is estimated to be a staggering £42 to £45 billion each year. Sickness absence, reduced productivity and staff turnover are all contributory factors. Whereas good mental health can play an essential role in the wider success, happiness and productivity of a workforce.

Striving to build good mental health amongst the whole workforce clearly needs to be an ongoing focus for employers. A central step to this is mental health awareness training that reduces the stigma linked to poor mental health and empowers employees with the knowledge to build resilience and proactively prevent mental ill health from occurring at all.

Here at SSG we run multiple options to assist organisations put in place the skills and methods for supporting employees with poor mental health, such as Mental Health First Aiders, Mental Health Aware, MHFA Champions, MHFAider® Refresher and Mental Health Overview.

Employers also have the option to facilitate their own awareness sessions which can be developed around SSG toolbox talks such Mental Health at Work, Mental Health Culture and Stress and Anxiety Guidance.

Here is a quick guide to the content to include when running an extended toolbox talk or team awareness session on mental health.

  • Consider the primary mental health challenges for employees

  • Share knowledge around the most common mental health conditions experienced by employees in the UK namely anxiety, depression, stress and burnout.

  • How to spot the signs in yourself and colleagues

  • Consider the signs of anxiety, depression, stress and burnout to prevent the situation deteriorating.

  • Discuss ways to prevent mental health deteriorating.

  • Encourage employees and managers to have early discussions on the signs and agree steps together to prevent deterioration.

Factors that impact on mental health

  • Talk through the internal and external factors that can negatively affect mental health such as managing workloads, work life balance, personal situations and workplace culture.

  • Talk through what steps individuals can take to maintain their wellbeing.

Having positive conversations

  • Promote a positive culture where mental health can be openly discussed.

  • Discuss how the stigma of mental health can be reduced.

  • Remind employees that it is ok to talk about their individual challenges and difficulties if they feel like they can and want to.

  • Make everyone aware that we each have different experiences and no two individuals will feel the same way when dealing with the same situation, issue or challenge in our lives.

  • Discuss the importance of self-care and building time into individual routines to achieve this.

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