1 turns to 19 at Arthur Ellis

What a year.

It's often difficult to take the time to reflect when you're running a business. or just working in general. This year, I decided to run two...talk about looking after your mental health and wellbeing!

In some respects, work can keep us well and despite struggling from time to time over this last year, being equipped with strategies and the know-how to manage my condition, even if it's just how I manage my stress, I haven't relapsed despite being under quite a lot of pressure at times.

I'm not a big believer in signing people off to help their mental health, in my opinion, as someone who has been signed off in the past, it just gets you out of your routine and into behaviours which can be detrimental - like staying in bed, eating rubbish and being alone (because everyone else is at work). I don't think anyone should be signed off without a plan of what healthy behaviours they are going to focus on while they are off.

It just goes to show, by being self-aware and having the motivation and knowledge to not get unwell, you can do anything...you can remain well, you don't have to let yourself dip too far but it's about learning what that means for you, how you manage it and remaining consistent.

At the beginning of 2019, it was just me in Arthur Ellis, starting training contracts with clients in 13 locations around the country and feeling somewhat apprehensive about whether my car would make the journeys!

But the old git made it (so did the car).

Towards the middle of the year, it was time to begin looking for some support. The dream for Arthur Ellis has always been to fund children to access support so that we can be instrumental in addressing issues with mental health before they have a lasting impact on the individual, their lives and those around them.

It wasn't long until a wonderful human landed in our offices, Rita, with 30 years experience in Psychology with children, young people and adults we began work on setting up our 1:1 service.

After getting everything in place, we began taking on clients in summer through our non-profit and setting the precedent that for each adult we support, we can provide this service to a child free of charge.

At the minute, children and young people are really struggling to access help. Around 75% of children nationally (over 110,000 last year) aren't able to access help so we have set out to change this.

Rita's team quickly grew, bringing in 12 incredible Mentors of differing capabilities including Psychology, Special Educational Needs, Confidence, Self-Esteem, Abuse and more! All of these wonderful people will be supporting children, young people and adults in the community in 1:1 sessions.

Our training with companies/schools, corporate sponsorship, online shop and adult 1:1's pay for children to get these sessions so we can help more and more children as we grow!

We are also welcoming in new trainers into the company, who are qualified in psychology to really help an organisation understand the mental health of their workforce and tackle the presenting issues with evidence-based tools...whilst supporting children!

The last few months have been dedicated to finalising 3 Non-Executive Director positions into Arthur Ellis with focus on Strategy, Corporate Governance, Training and Team Development. These appointments have been a huge milestone for the business but me personally too, taking a step back from the day to day and being buried in the operations I could feel myself slipping into not being able to have as much of a focus on our overall vision.

So we are going into 2020 as a team of 19, with a clear vision for our training, how we are going to help organisations become #IndependentFromIllness and continue to grow our 1:1 service for adults so we can open our doors for children to access emotional support.

It was so good getting everyone together for Christmas, some meeting for the first time. I don't tend to focus on taking pictures for social media but here is an action shot for one of our games!

Reflecting on my mental health has been a big part of the year too. Running a couple of companies has been pretty impactful. There have been times where it has been difficult and I have dipped too low for my liking but allowing a mental health condition to dip too far will just continue to escalate so it's important to recognise that, take the niternal and external feedback and step back.

Without allowing yourself to dip too far isn't as simple as it sounds...you don't just need to know yourself when you are and have a level of self-awareness but the people around you also need to understand what helps you.

Talking is great and speaking to people about how you feel is so important but by understanding what that means to you and helping those around you understand this too will help when times get tough. not just in speaking about it but knowing what to do about it.

By speaking objectively about how I keep well with the team, they know what is important to my wellbeing. If I start to slip, with their help, I can increase the emphasis on those ways I keep healthy to bring me back up with their understanding and flexibility without it having an impact on the business.

We take wellbeing extremely seriously as an organisation, not just for our clients whether it's an SME, a huge corporate or the individuals we support through our 1:1's. We are all human. I hope that our growth this year from 1 to 19 proves just how effective having a culture focused on health and wellbeing can be.

I want to thank everyone for this year, our clients, our friends and the whole Arthur Ellis team!

Everyone is so fantastic and we can't wait until 2020 when we will be set for more incredible things.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year