The R U OK? Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation set up to prevent suicide by encouraging all people to regularly and meaningfully ask 'are you ok?'. R U OK? Day is a national day of action on the second Thursday of September each year (12th September 2019), dedicated to reminding people to regularly check in with family, friends and colleagues. Their vision is a world where we're all connected and are protected from suicide.

This R U OK? Day, Newport & Wildman would like to partner with you to put your People in Focus and ensure we connect with as many people as possible. We have developed a variety of options to spread the important message of R U OK?.

 1. Why Wait? Our R U OK? Day Recorded Webinar is Available September 1st!

Every day should be R U OK? Day. With this Recorded Webinar, you can decide when you would like to share this important message throughout September.

Details:

• 30 Minutes. Available from the 1st of September for 1 month. Unlimited views.
• This can be purchased for only $300 + GST or 2 hours from your pre-purchased allotment.
• Webinar Outline: Download Here 

2. Arrange a Face to Face R U OK? Day Training

Our Training Facilitators are qualified professionals with a depth and breadth of clinical and industry experience and they are ready to come out to your organisation!

Details:

• 1 hour- Refreshed training session using the knowledge of the Newport & Wildman clinical team.
• Ask us for a quote.
• Due to high demand, make sure you book in to secure your spot.
• Signed quotes must be received by the 20th of August, so we can coordinate resources, and allow you time to communicate and promote the training.
• Training Outline: Download Here

3. Join us for our  LIVE R U OK? Day Webinars

Choose between two LIVE R U OK? Day Webinars on Thursday the 12th of September for strategies and tips to support you to confidently have a conversation.

Details:

• 30 Minutes. Running at 11am OR 3pm on Thursday the 12th of September.
• This can be purchased for only $300 + GST or 2 hours from your pre-purchased allotment, for unlimited employee attendance.
• Webinar Outline: Download Here
• Note: this webinar is presented by AccessEAP for Newport and Wildman customers­­­

 4. Brand NEW Format, LIVE Q&A Webinars

For the first time, Newport & Wildman through AccessEAP is conducting a full Question and Answer Webinar. Two LIVE conversations with two clinicians to discuss how to help someone you are concerned about. These will be held after the Live R U OK? Day Webinars and will focus on having a conversation about helping others with mental health concerns and include an anonymous Q&A forum where your questions can be answered by clinicians.

Details:

• 30 Minutes. Running at 11.45am OR 3.45pm on Thursday the 12th of September.
• This can be purchased for only $300 + GST or 2 hours from your pre-purchased allotment, for unlimited employee attendance.
• Webinar Outline: Download Here
• Note: this webinar is presented by AccessEAP for Newport and Wildman customers­­­

 Contact us today to start the conversation.

Traumatic events such as the mass shootings in Christchurch disrupt lives physically and psychologically, creating intense emotional distress for individuals, families and whole communities. Organisations play a vital and valuable role in assisting and supporting their employees and their families in the immediate aftermath and in the days, weeks and months following this tragic event.

The immediate focus is to ensure that your employees and their loved ones are safe. At this present time, particularly with intense media coverage and access to information on the internet, it’s important to acknowledge that this is a heightened state of emotion for everyone involved. It’s important to be aware that everyone will respond differently and everyone’s needs will be different, initially and over time.  Being prepared to provide initial and long term support for people will enhance and promote their own personal coping strategies and resilience.

What your people will need right now is (download pdf version here):

• If needed, allow additional time at home to spend time with family and friends - this helps them to feel safe and connected, and reassure others of their safety
• Make sure your employees or students have access to support information and numbers - specifically the EAP and any other services you may have in place.
• Give people assurance that affected families will be supported in some form or another.

This tragedy will have the potential to re-trigger feelings of trauma and loss and memories may surface. Over the coming weeks, it is important to reassure, support and connect with each other. Patience is required as everyone will feel and respond differently. People will need time, to acknowledge their responses and to process.

Over the coming days, and in time, what your people will need is for you to provide simple and accurate information on how to access services, specifically encourage, and make it easy for, employees/students to speak with a professional counsellor. Most people will not want to speak to a counsellor in the initial days or weeks as they support each other. It is in the longer term when people need support from a counsellor or their Employee Assistance Program.

• Create an environment that allows people to talk amongst themselves about fears and hopes related to the tragic events. Openly sharing with others has been known to promote personal recovery. There is also comfort in a shared community supporting one another.
• Be mindful and respectful of individual needs. Some people may feel uncomfortable or scared of sharing their feelings. Remember that there is no right or wrong way to feel.
• There may be feelings of anger and hopelessness; there will intense feelings of anxiety and fear.
• Establish an open door policy that allows people to seek the appropriate care when needed.
• If possible and when appropriate try to establish normal routines as soon as possible.
• Encourage people to communicate their needs, rather than assume you know what their needs may be.
• Maintain communication if an employee or student is away for any length of time.

An incident of this nature has the power to entirely consume those involved, especially when it has an impact on one’s feeling of safety and one’s family. As leaders and managers it is within our control to provide support, reassurance and caring.

Please call our 24-hour line 1800 650 204

Alison Kelleher - Newport & Wildman, Director

Traumatic events such as the mass shootings in Christchurch disrupt lives physically and psychologically, creating intense emotional distress for individuals, families and whole communities. Organisations play a vital and valuable role in assisting and supporting their employees and their families in the immediate aftermath and in the days, weeks and months following this tragic event.

The immediate focus is to ensure that your employees and their loved ones are safe. At this present time, particularly with intense media coverage and access to information on the internet, it’s important to acknowledge that this is a heightened state of emotion for everyone involved. It’s important to be aware that everyone will respond differently and everyone’s needs will be different, initially and over time.  Being prepared to provide initial and long term support for people will enhance and promote their own personal coping strategies and resilience.

What your people will need right now is (download pdf version here):

• If needed, allow additional time at home to spend time with family and friends - this helps them to feel safe and connected, and reassure others of their safety
• Make sure your employees or students have access to support information and numbers - specifically the EAP and any other services you may have in place.
• Give people assurance that affected families will be supported in some form or another.

The people of Christchurch have recently experienced and lived through the trauma of the earthquake. Many people are still dealing with the aftermath. This tragedy will have the potential to re-trigger feelings of trauma and loss and memories will surface. Over the coming weeks, it is important to reassure, support and connect with each other. Patience is required as everyone will feel and respond differently. People will need time, to acknowledge their responses and to process.

Over the coming days, and in time, what your people will need is for you to provide simple and accurate information on how to access services, specifically encourage, and make it easy for, employees/students to speak with a professional counsellor. Most people will not want to speak to a counsellor in the initial days or weeks as they support each other. It is in the longer term when people need support from a counsellor or their Employee Assistance Program.

• Create an environment that allows people to talk amongst themselves about fears and hopes related to the tragic events. Openly sharing with others has been known to promote personal recovery. There is also comfort in a shared community supporting one another.
• Be mindful and respectful of individual needs. Some people may feel uncomfortable or scared of sharing their feelings. Remember that there is no right or wrong way to feel.
• There may be feelings of anger and hopelessness; there will intense feelings of anxiety and fear.
• Establish an open door policy that allows people to seek the appropriate care when needed.
• If possible and when appropriate try to establish normal routines as soon as possible.
• Encourage people to communicate their needs, rather than assume you know what their needs may be.
• Maintain communication if an employee or student is away for any length of time.

An incident of this nature has the power to entirely consume those involved, especially when it has an impact on one’s feeling of safety and one’s family. As leaders and managers it is within our control to provide support, reassurance and caring.

For New Zealand - please call 08 0032 7669

For Australia – please call our 24-hour line 1800 818 728

Rick Hanson, a key proponent of positive psychology, says that our brain has a negativity bias to facilitate survival of the species, and we therefore have to work consciously to develop a positivity bias. By actively focusing on the positive we can gradually tune the brain to positive experience and gradually desensitise it to negative ones.

Recent research demonstrates that people who focus on the positive more consistently experience improved mood, energy, and physical wellbeing. Positive thoughts can reduce the stress hormone, cortisol, by 23% according to this research.

You are invited to participate in a 2-week challenge to assist with developing your own positivity bias. An example log is provided with this month's Wellbeing Calendar to get you started with recording tasks and conversations daily that you feel proud of and pleased with.

AccessEAP offers a Supporting Working Parents Workshop specifically designed to assist participants to address the challenges and benefits of being a working parent, understand the impact of high stress levels on parenting and to identify practical strategies and skills to manage these competing roles. The workshop can be organised by contacting your Relationship Manager and is ideal for upto 15 participants.

Here are some Tips for working parents that may help working parents manage their split responsibility more effectively.

Get a Team

You don’t have to do it alone. Think creatively about who may make up your team, it may include a partner, extended family, friends in a similar boat or paid support. Establish your team and then as with all teams, be clear about your goals and roles and work together to make it feel like you’ve shard the load.

A Flexible Parent Is a Resilient Parent

As a parent you will appreciate that eveything will not always go according to plan. When things happen that are unexpected or in a way that was not anticipated, adjust plans and deal with things as they are, don’t get hung up on how they “should” have been.

Focus on quality, not quantity, of time with kids

Kids are different, so ask your kids what’s most important to them when it comes to spending time with you. Listening to your kids will help you prioritise and improve your time with them. It’s also important that recreation activities with your kids include things you really like doing, this way you genuinely all have fun and enjoy your time together.

Make time for your spouse/ self—not just for your kids

A study by the UCLA Sloan Centre on Everyday Lives and Families, found that while parents were spending more time with kids, they were spending far less time with each other—three fewer hours per week since 1975, according to one survey. This trend impacts the parental relationship, which in turn has major implications on parenting. Book in a joint massage together, set a regular date night (and stick to it), schedule in exercise or a walk together. You may also need time in your own to reflect and recharge.

(Jeremy Adam Smith of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center)

Wherever you are, be there—be present

Practicing mindfulness doesn’t just lead to decreased stress and increased pleasure in parenting, but it also brings profound benefits to kids.

Simply put, this is about being at work when you’re at work and being at home when you’re at home—which breaks out into specific parenting skills, like listening with full attention; nonjudgmentally accepting yourself and the people in your life; and cultivating compassion for yourself, your partner, and your child.

Give yourself a little credit—and say “thanks” to your spouse/ supports

Parents need to appreciate and value what they are doing—not beat themselves up over what they can’t do! Also try giving other people some credit as well, especially your partner. Because it is very, very easy for working parents to take each other for granted.

Many organisations and indeed countries are doing just that: minding the gender pay gap. Iceland is well on the way while New Zealand has just announced that no gender pay gaps exist in starting salaries for the same roles in government by 2020. Energy Australia and Salesforce are two organisations that have made a stand to eliminate the gap. Despite these advances there are still some alarming, hard facts surrounding the real limitations on a woman’s financial situation.

Across all workers, from those new to paid employment to those nearing retirement, the mean superannuation account balance for men is $112,000 and just $68,000 for women¹. We are told one of the reasons for this is that women tend to be primary care-givers and are therefore likely to work casually or part-time, and take extended absences from paid work. Another major reason is the gender pay gap, such that across Australia on average women are paid 15.3% less than men each week².

Annual surveys conducted since 2013³ inform us that the top issue consistently impacting on the wellbeing of Australians is financial stress. Women are far more likely than men to be experiencing financial stress. With 55% of women under 35 finding dealing with money stressful and overwhelming⁴.

It makes smart business sense to implement initiatives which address these challenges, particularly as 46.9% of employees in Australia are women⁵. If for no other reason, the bottom line of your organisation is very likely to be impacted by the financial circumstances of your employees. When workers, both male and female, are experiencing chronic financial stress, this will have a significant effect on productivity.

More and more unconscious bias is being recognised and women are actively encouraged to participate in jobs, and at levels, that have previously been male dominated. Further examples of incentives taken by organisations to allow women to participate in the workforce on an equal footing include; transparent and consistent recruitment and remuneration; flexible work arrangements; paid parental leave and access to educational seminars on financial topics.

At age 15 girls are more financially literate than boys⁶ and 40% of women aged 25-29 hold a bachelors degree (compared to 30% of men)⁷ however 85% of women under 35 don't understand fundamental investment concepts⁴. For women looking to learn more and be proactive in terms of planning for life events and retirement there are resources available. At AccessEAP specialist financial coaching is part of the annual EAP allocation and can be requested long before the situation becomes overwhelming for employees struggling financially. There are also several excellent resources offered by the Federal government to help educate and assist in relation to the particular financial challenges women face.

[1] Association of Superannuation Funds Australia.

[2] Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

[3] Australian Psychological Society Stress and Wellbeing in Australia Survey.

[4] 46.9% according to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

[5] EY Sweeney, Australian Financial Attitudes and Behaviour Tracker (Wave 5) March 2017.

[6] OECD Report PISA 2015.Financial literacy in Australia.

[7] ABS Gender Indicators; Education, February 2016.