Last year for Mental Health Awareness Week, we hosted a special session with London Director, Ginny Bradwell. She talked openly about her own personal experiences and it was an extremely popular session. The subsequent podcast has been downloaded many times and is available here. For MHAW 2022, we’ve decided to host another session, dedicated to mental health, as part of our weekly student webinar.
MHAW 2022
This year for Mental Health Awareness Week, we’ll be focusing on men’s mental health. Not because we think that this is more important than mental wellbeing in general but because we know from the evidence that men are just as likely to experience problems but less to seek help. There has been a huge spotlight in the media on getting men to talk about their mental health and also the need for greater help for younger men. With roughly 50% of our students being men and many of these aged under 30, we’re hosting this session to highlight the support available and discuss some of the key issues.
The Session
This year’s webinar will take place on Wednesday 11th of May between 6.00 pm and 7.00 pm and you can sign up to join us with the link below:
This is our regular student webinar forum, so if you are already registered you can attend as normal. The session will be released as a podcast later in the week on our platform so there is no need to miss out.
This session is for our students and network. However, we appreciate that not everyone will be comfortable sharing their thoughts and experiences on a live webinar. We’re therefore asking that if there is a question or topic that you would like raised in this session, you email benbullman@fi.co.uk, lucybrennan@fi.co.uk, or rebeccawhite@fi.co.uk by the morning of the webinar. All emails will be treated in confidence and will remain with Ben or Rebecca who are designated safeguarding officers. They will ensure that your questions remain anonymous during the session.
If you are a female student/member of our network you can also email questions on behalf of or about a loved one, friend or colleague. Again this will be treated in confidence.
Our Panel
We are delighted to be joined by Javed Bobat, Founder & CEO of Fide & F=@#! Mental Health. Javed set up Fide Careers, a finance recruitment company with a difference. They are the first to market with a groundbreaking concept which integrates workplace mental health into the recruitment model. Javed has worked with our team at FI Yorkshire offering mental health awareness sessions.
F=@#! Mental Health is a non-profit Community Interest Company Javed set up to raise awareness of Mental health within the accountancy profession. He delivers a mix of free, part and fully subsidised mental health training, talks and events, as well as providing wellbeing support to finance professionals at all levels, be that one on one help or to teams/wider places of work. He funds any shortfall through the revenues he generates via his recruitment company Fide.
Andy Buncall from our Yorkshire team will also be joining this session on the panel. Andy talks openly about his own experiences of mental health struggles. He is also passionate about passing on what he has learned to our students.
Who is this for?
Anyone is welcome to attend. The focus will be on men’s mental health but we invite our female students to come along too. If you have a loved one, friend, or colleague who you feel may be struggling, our panel will offer useful advice and talk about the resources available. We welcome all students and employers alike from any of our centres. However, it is open anyone to who feels this session may be of use to them.
Watch this space for a follow-up article. This will include a link to the podcast episode, a summary of the discussion points and key resources.
