I was delighted and encouraged to read the report that has just been released by the Department of Health and Human Services following the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. Although, I also felt pretty sad and disappointed when I reflected on how overdue these findings are, and the fact that it took a Royal Commission to uncover something that has had such a detrimental impact on so many people’s lives for so long. Notwithstanding this, we are very heartened by the 65 explicit recommendations and feel optimistic about the future these changes could bring.

For over 11 years now, we’ve seen a need for new approaches to mental health, and this report seems to address many of the things we’ve been talking about. More specifically, we are pleased to see detailed recommendations about establishing mentally healthy workplaces (recommendation 16) and the Victorian Governments’ commitment to “foster the commitment of employers to create mentally healthy workplaces”. The workplace is a huge part of our community and any attempt to enhance our communities mental health needs to incorporate the work setting. In fact, given the impact of COVID-19 on our workplaces and the increasing blurring of the boundaries between work and home, we must address the whole person in our efforts to improve our mental health.

At Steople, we will continue to work with our clients on this journey to create flourishing workplaces as we have done for many years now and we will endeavour to reach out to more of our clients, whom we have not worked with in the wellbeing space, and seek to help them achieve a more mentally healthy workplace using a preventative and proactive rather than reactive approach to creating a thriving work environment.