Leading the way

As many will realise, the message of this year’s Mind Your Head campaign is that agriculture is a proud and hardworking industry and vital to the UK economy and far from being downtrodden, our farmers are resilient and resourceful and committed to finding ways to tackle any challenge they face.

We’ve been encouraged by the numbers of farm businesses and organisations learning more about how to help their workers and suppliers, many of which have engaged with rural support groups and charities to help them deliver this training.

One such business is the TB Advisory Service, who recently completed accredited mental health training with RABI. We asked Sarah Tomlinson, TBAS Technical Director why they decided to take this step and what benefits it has had for their advisors.

She said: “I was given the opportunity to complete the RABI mental health first aid training, it has been invaluable in guiding me to know how to approach the very real immediate crises farmer and vets find themselves in. It also gave me some knowledge on how to manage my own wellbeing as dealing with such awful TB situations can become really emotionally draining as I can’t solve everyone’s problems as much as I would like to try!”

Another organisation who recently put key staff through mental health awareness training is the Farming Union of Wales. FUW

President Ian Rickman explained: “The FUW has long understood that the deep roots we have in our rural communities means we carry an element of responsibility and that’s why we have committed to train our staff on a regular basis on how to spot the signs of poor mental health in ourselves and others and what to do if we find we ourselves, a friend, family member or neighbour struggling. The training delivered by the DPJ Foundation should form an essential element of training for any organisation in rural Wales and we would encourages others to take up the training for their staff and workforces.”

Leading supplier of agronomy advice, seed and services Agrovista brought in the team from the Farming Community Network recently to deliver some wellbeing support workshops.

According to Jodie Champion, Head of Marketing, Agrovista: “Recognising the significance of mental well-being, we prioritise fostering connections. Our teams recently joined in on Wellbeing Support workshops by The Farming Community Network. Our aspiration is to become better equipped to identify support resources for both our growers and team members in times of need.”

Interest in having mental health in farming training for anyone ‘down the farm lane’ has been growing steadily and, since 2020 alone, here at the Farm Safety Foundation, we have offered a variety of workshops for many and varied organisations including AHDB, CoOp, McCain UK, TESCO Future Farmers, Dunbia, British Sugar and DEFRA.

Another small charity with a big reach is YANA. Covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire, YANA stands for ‘You Are Not Alone’ and started life in 2008 as a project and gained charitable status in 2020. As well as its helpline, fully-funded counselling and suicide prevention resources, YANA have been growing an army of Mental Health First Aiders made up of 450 individuals and representing over 150 organisations across East Anglia. The recent addition of a three and a half-hour ‘Mental Health Essentials’ session has enabled an additional 120 individuals to develop their understanding of the practical aspects of everyday life that can make a big difference to themselves and those around them.

Mental health training can come in many guises so for anyone employing staff, the Health & Safety Executive offer a free online course to help prevent stress and support good mental health in their workforce. The new bitesize online learning is made up of six short modules and here are games and quizzes peppered throughout to keep things interesting and the good news is that it takes less than an hour to complete. CLICK HERE to learn more…