“Often in services like ours, the staff have such caring natures that they put the health and needs of clients ahead of their own. We wanted to let our staff know they are valued.”
Aspire Support Services is a support provider based in Albury/Wodonga. They have 200 staff and provide a range of services for people with a disability, children and young people and their families, from supported accommodation to respite care and early childhood intervention. They joined the Program in 2013, with the aim of creating a healthier workplace that supports its staff.
Heads Up helps you break it down
Aspire chose to focus on the Mental Health & Wellbeing health priority because staff surveys indicated that stress management techniques were a primary area of interest for most staff.
Aspire utilised the Heads Up program from beyondblue to create an action plan that helped them stay on track with implementing their mental health strategies, they found the structure of Heads Up complimented the Achievement program and helped them navigate through the Mental Health and Wellbeing health priority.
Communication stations
Aspire’s initiatives included; increased training of their leaders in areas such as motivation and emotional intelligence, enhancing staff debriefing practices after incidents to include an understanding of psychological injuries rather than just physical injuries, and consistent promotion of EAP services for staff and managers
Aspire recommend frequent communication to staff about any initiatives you are running, particularly if these are happening at management level. This ensures that all staff are aware of the change going on in your organisation and can have some ownership of it.
"Our managers and team leaders have become a lot more approachable due to the training provided"
“Workers from all areas and levels are now actively suggesting ways that we can get involved in making those around them feel supported … for example Random Acts of Kindness, shared lunches and recognising staff achievements.”
Healthy behaviours help to lower health risks, prevent chronic disease, enhance learning outcomes and set children up for a life of healthy habits.