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Employee Mental Health & Wellbeing Workshops

As part of the Partners in Wellbeing program, ARV is offering your workplace access to free, evidence-based workshops, designed to promote and maintain employee mental health and wellbeing, improve teamwork and optimise productivity. These workshops are available to all ARV members until 30 June 2023.

Presenter

All workshops will be delivered by ARV’s Mental Health Clinician/Consultant, Adele Bergin. Adele is a registered psychologist with a Master of Clinical Psychology. She has previously delivered workshops and training as an EAP consultant. Adele is passionate about evidence-based practice and has conducted extensive research into employee wellbeing (check out her Google Scholar profile here).

Workshop Topics

For Managers:

How to Create a Mentally Healthy Workplace: A mentally healthy workplace has a positive, productive, workplace culture where workers and management collaborate to protect and promote the health, safety, and wellbeing of all staff. In this workshop, participants will learn why creating a mentally healthy workplace is important, along with the steps required to create a mentally healthy workplace.
Psychological Hazards at Work: Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (OHS Act), employers must provide and maintain for employees "a working environment that is safe and without risks to health". The OHS Act defines “health” to include mental health. This workshop is focused on discussing the risk factors in the workplace that can adversely affect employee mental health, and how to prevent or minimise them.
The Proposed Occupational Health & Safety (Psychological Health) Amendment Regulations: Under the Victorian Government's proposed OHS (Psychological Health) Amendment Regulations, organisations will be required to identify, and control for, psychosocial hazards in the workplace. This workshop will overview the background to the Proposed Regulations, and the duties imposed, along with steps for how to prepare for the Proposed Regulations. Learn more here.
How to Lead for Wellbeing: New data shows that for almost 70% of people, their manager has more impact on their mental health than their therapist or their doctor—and it’s equal to the impact of their partner. This workshop covers how managers impact wellbeing at work, and practical strategies that managers can use to enhance wellbeing in their employees.
Manager Wellbeing. The best leaders not only pay attention to their team members' wellbeing - they take care of their own. This workshop will discuss the importance of managers looking after their own health and wellbeing through effective self-care, including strategies to prevent burnout.
How to Recognise and Respond to an Employee Who is Struggling: This workshop will discuss the prevalence of mental illness at work, as well as how to recognise the common signs of mental ill health, build confidence in responding to employees who may be struggling, and where to refer employees for appropriate support.

For All Staff:

Building Mental Fitness: Mental fitness is all about thinking of the brain as a muscle to strengthen – so that we can rise to meet life’s challenges with a more positive, proactive, mindset. This workshop discusses a wide range of mental fitness exercises and activities that are shown to improve mental health, and help people build their own “mental fitness routine”.
Mental Health Awareness: Provides participants with a greater understanding of mental health problems, as well as how mental health problems develop; and what they can do to support someone they know or suspect is experiencing a mental health problem.
Stress Management Skills: This workshop discusses the signs of stress, how stress develops, as well as strategies to deal effectively with stress in our personal and professional lives.
Self-Care: This workshop helps employees recognise the importance of looking after their personal health and wellbeing through effective self-care. Participants learn a suite of tools and techniques to keep their health and wellbeing in check.
Mindfulness: Mindfulness is often misunderstood and misused, but it has many science-backed benefits for mental health and wellbeing. This workshop provides an introduction to the concept and principles of mindfulness, and includes guided mindfulness practices.
Preventing Burnout: Burnout is a gradual process, and recognising the signs before it progresses, is crucial. This workshop will focus on how to recognise the signs and symptoms of burnout, and steps for prevention.
Building Resilience: Resilience is a skill that can be developed and improved with practice. This workshop helps participants identify and develop strategies for improving and maintaining resilience in the context of work and life, so that they feel better prepared to manage stressful situations and solve problems when they next arise.
Tips for Better Sleep: Employees who sleep better are more productive, make better decisions, maintain more positive workplace relationships and generally create a happier working environment. During this workshop, participants gain a greater understanding of how sleep impacts mental health and will learn practical strategies to improve their quality of sleep.
The Science of Happiness: This workshop explores the principles of positive psychology, and how science-backed practices can be used to boost happiness and support optimal performance.
Preventative Training on Coping After a Critical Incident: One of the biggest risk factors to staff mental health within the aquatics & recreation industry is exposure to workplace aggression, harassment, violence, or traumatic events. Each of these hazards can place staff at an increased risk of developing, or exacerbating existing, mental health problems. Employers can, however, help to prevent the effects of exposure to critical incidences by adequately preparing employees. In Coping After a Critical Incidence employees will learn: 1) common responses employees can expect in the aftermath of a critical incident; 2) how to develop healthy coping responses; and 3) when to seek support. Learn more here.

Delivery

All workshops can be delivered via webinar or face-to-face delivery. Workshops can be delivered as a lunchtime class, toolbox talk, presentation, or whatever best suits your workplace. Workshops can be adapted from anywhere between 30-minute to 2-hour sessions.