Mental Health Awareness Week 2022
This week (9th – 15th May) is Mental Health Awareness Week, an annual campaign that encourages people across the UK to openly discuss mental health and support one another. This year, the theme is ‘loneliness’ – which can be both a cause and product of poor mental health – and people are being encouraged to reach out to their family, friends, colleagues and communities to support, connect with and uplift one another. You can find out more about this year’s theme on the Mental Health Foundation’s website.
We at the York & North Yorkshire LEP and Growth Hub are using Mental Health Awareness Week as a way to connect with each other and combat the loneliness we can sometimes feel when working from home. We’re challenging each other to meet face-to-face as much as possible and make room on our agendas to grab a cuppa and get together for some social time. We’re also encouraging our team to reach out and talk with colleagues they don’t know well, so we can all get to know each other a bit more. Finally, we’re making mental health awareness training accessible to the team and pointing everyone to mental health resources and support.
We’re hoping to build more connections across our team and promote open discussions, and we encourage you to spread awareness and support through your workplace as well!
Below are some resources from our website that can help you think about mental health and how you can support both yourself and others in the workplace.
Mental Health & Wellbeing Toolkit
Our Mental Health & Wellbeing Toolkit is free to download and can help answer your questions about workplace wellbeing. The toolkit includes a range of practical resources that can help both you and your employees.
With the guide, you’ll learn:
- What is meant by ‘mental health’?
- Business owners’ legal responsibilities around mental health
- What to do if you are worried about a staff member
- How to avoid creating mental health problems in the workplace
- How to manage your own mental health
On-demand wellbeing webinars
We have a wide range of webinars available on-demand for you to watch, including our new wellbeing playlist. The playlist is free to access and contains hours of content covering mental health, wellbeing and supporting your colleagues and employees.
Topics include:
- Employee wellness and engagement
- Maintaining positive mental health and wellbeing in difficult times
- Supporting the return to work
- Building resilience and supporting team wellbeing
- Plus more
Watch our playlist now with this link.
We also have individual webinars available for you to watch, which cover a variety of topics from wellbeing to leadership and building connections and resiliency across your team. All of our on-demand webinars can be found here.
Tips for creating a happier workforce
One misconception is that keeping employees happy at work is expensive, but you can create a more positive workplace by ensuring your employees feel valued and connected using inexpensive means. Our blog offers you some simple ideas to support your staff and create a happier, more productive and supportive workforce.
Connect with mental health support, training and programmes
Programmes exist to help you support employees who are experiencing mental health challenges and create inclusive workplaces.
Thriving at Work is a project that aims to support people to unlock their potential at work. The project can help you to create an inclusive workplace, and offers specialist coaching, training, webinars and 1-to-1 support. The project not only aims to support people with mental health challenges, but also offers training to help you support neurodiverse and disabled staff to thrive at work too. All support is free to access.
The Skills Support for the Workforce programme offers a range of free training, which includes support around mental health awareness, mental health first aid, promoting equality and diversity in the workplace and more. Skills training is also proven to make employees feel valued, improve productivity and confidence, and encourages teamwork. Skills Support for the Workforce offers training across York and North Yorkshire, for all sectors.
Steps into Digital: Data Analytics for Smarter Decisions Workshop Series
This nine part workshop series is designed to help businesses at every stage of their data journey from those just starting out to those ready to explore artificial intelligence and compliance. Each session is practical, jargon free and grounded in real business use cases, ensuring participants leave with tools and knowledge they can apply immediately.
Scams warning as Self Assessment customers targeted
Scammers often impersonate HMRC, offering fake refunds or demanding urgent payments to steal personal and banking information. They may say it’s safe to share personal details. It’s not. Passwords, usernames, and access codes are private and customers should never share them, even with someone they trust or who helps them with their tax.
York and North Yorkshire farms urged to apply for sustainability funding
Farms and businesses that have had an energy audit can now apply for funding up to £49,950 to help decarbonise their businesses. York and North Yorkshire’s Business Sustainability Programme will help farms and businesses implement changes that have been recommended by the local authority or Grow Yorkshire decarbonisation support programme or one which has been done by a suitable private sector organisation.
Steps into Digital: LinkedIn Webinar Series
This three-part LinkedIn webinar series is designed to support you at every stage of your LinkedIn journey, from building a presence to leveraging the platform for business growth.
Steps into Digital: Digital Marketing Mastery
Step into Digital this September with Digital Marketing Mastery, a three-part weekly seminar session, hosted at Patch York. Led by Katie Thompson, founder of content marketing service Katie Lingo.
Business Basics Webinar Series
Starting in August 2025, the Growth Hub will one again be joined by Jo Tomlinson from Business Works for a series of fully funded ‘Business Basics’ webinars looking at pricing, planning and all things numbers. The full series will be recorded and hosted on the Growth Hub website.
Steps into Digital Programme
The Steps into Digital programme focusses on strategic, guided steps toward adopting the right digital tools and practices for your business. Emphasising a supportive, paced approach to digital transformation, accessible and manageable to all at any level.
Historic trade deal signed with India to deliver £170 million boost to Yorkshire and the Humber
Businesses and workers in Yorkshire and the Humber are set to benefit from the UK’s trade deal with India, as new analysis shows the landmark agreement will deliver a £170 million boost for the local economy as part of the Plan for Change.
Work with the Growth Hub: Start Support and Digital Voucher Scheme
The Growth Hub are now planning our programmes of support for local businesses for the year, and are again looking to work with expert providers to deliver this support. These programmes are funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF)
YNY Equity Hub Launches to Drive Business Growth in York and North Yorkshire
A new digital platform, the YNY Equity Hub, has launched to boost investment in businesses across York and North Yorkshire by connecting local enterprises with prospective investors from across the UK. Designed to tackle one of the region’s key barriers to growth, the YNY Equity Hub offers a streamlined, user-friendly portal where SMEs and start-ups can showcase their investment opportunities and growth potential.
Yorkshire businesses get £2.4m digital innovation boost
Hundreds of manufacturing businesses across Yorkshire have put themselves at the forefront of enhancing their business through digital innovation – and now more can join them after a further £2.4m was received to support the region’s digital ambitions. Since 2021, the “Made Smarter Yorkshire and Humber” programme has supported more than 700 Yorkshire manufacturing businesses to take up digital adoption projects to improve efficiency and productivity, boosting the strength of manufacturing across the region.
BOOST: A marketing support programme for York and North Yorkshire tourism and hospitality businesses
This practical, action-oriented programme of activity has been developed to help you market your business more effectively, saving time and money. It’s created and delivered by Susan Briggs from The Tourism Network. Susan has over thirty years of successful tourism marketing experience. It’s for visitor-facing tourism businesses such as accommodation providers; visitor attractions; activity and experience providers; creative, retail, food and drink businesses.