By Emma Sneddon

May 24, 2021

Welcomm Partner with Customer Combat Stress

… To deliver a LIVE Mental Health Q&A session

Thousands of people struggle everyday due to poor mental health. ​

That is why this Mental Health Awareness Week, we teamed up with customer Combat Stress: The Veterans’​ Mental Health Charity to deliver a live streamed mental wellbeing session hosted by Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Dr Naomi Wilson.

Designed to demystify mental health and share why veterans (and others) deal with things differently, the 30 minute session shared some simple strategies people can implement to benefit their own mental health, and the health of others – finishing by answering viewer questions live on the call. 


Your Mental Health Questions Answered

Click each question below to reveal expert guidance from Dr Naomi Wilson.

How would I know if one of my team are struggling?

“I know that for most organisations, wellbeing is already high on the agenda. One of the things we’ve been trying to do within Combat Stress is to make wellbeing part of line management – having open discussions with employees so things don’t come up unexpectedly. It’s helpful if Senior Managers can model that as well, in terms of looking after their own wellbeing, so it doesn’t come as a surprise either to the employee or to yourself if difficulties start to arise.

With COVID, now we’re all working at home, we’ve had to understand in much more detail what the home context is for each other in order to not only be at work, but be well at work, and that’s been a learning process for all of us. I think there’s something to say about softening the culture at work, so that we can talk about our feelings – including things at work that are affecting us at home (or vice versa).

I encourage you to have those discussions with members of your team to ask “what happens for you when you start to struggle? Is it that you start to sleep poorly, are you struggling to concentrate, is it that you notice that you’re getting anxious all the time?” If you can start to have those conversations then you can start to notice – and that will help you understand if someone is struggling.”

What could we do as an organisation to support the mental health of our team?
“At a strategic level, lots of organisations are investing in a wellbeing strategy. However I think there is a really important precursor to that. And that is surveying or asking your staff (either informally or formally) how well they are at work across a range of domains.
Once you’ve got this benchmark, you can target your wellbeing strategy against the areas that your staff are really struggling with. This will be different depending on the workplace and the type of work that your organisation undertakes.
And then of course once you’ve implemented different well-being strategies, whether that’s introducing flexible working or perhaps training your managers to have those wellbeing conversations routinely as a part of line management, you want to evaluate and check in six months down the line. Has this had an impact? Ask your staff again and learn from your results.”
What is a key takeaway from today’s session?
“I would say, keep ‘the stress bottle’ in mind [discussed at 14:01 in the video].



Sometimes we ignore (or get so used to) carrying our stress with us that we become a bit blind to it.

If we take a moment to sit down and remember how much we are carrying, in all different domains of our lives, it can be really helpful.

Another important note is to be kind to yourself.

If we can give ourselves permission to be kind to ourselves, that also tends to increase our capacity to be kind and compassionate to others and will increase our ability to talk about the things that are difficult. If we can do that, then we can find a solution to it… but if we don’t know there is a problem, then we can’t find a solution to it – it’s all connected.”
How can I signpost a veteran to support?
“If any veteran feels that they need treatment, then the best thing to do is to call the Combat Stress 24/7 helpline: 0800 138 1619

More information is available on the Combat Stress website: combatstress.org.uk

Any veteran can self refer in the first instance, but all call handlers are there to talk about the help they need.

If it’s not treatment but rather they need peer support, they will indicate, depending on where they live, a whole range of different options that may be available to them.

There are lots of smaller veterans charities and not-for-profit organisations that offer that support on an ongoing basis, and it can be really vital for a lot of veterans to maintain their wellbeing.”

Thank you Dr Naomi Wilson

Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Head of Psychological Therapies at Combat Stress

Thank you so much to those that joined us live on the session, and of course to Combat Stress. If you found the information useful, a donation to Combat Stress would really help them continue to support veterans across the country.

Otherwise, we are thrilled to be able to offer our customers additional value to support their people. If you’d like to revisit the information shared during the session, the slides can be downloaded below.

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