Businesses and schools alike move forward with plans to address the waning mental health of employees and students.
In December 2020, the CEOs of America’s 14 leading mental health organizations joined forces to lobby the federal government, as well as all 50 state governments, to fight for more investment in mental health initiatives.
With growing societal concerns surrounding mental health, and increasing public support for wellness initiatives, many companies, schools, and other institutions, have begun to invest more heavily in the wellness of their constituents.
Forbes magazine highlighted CHG Healthcare, a company that has taken considerable pre-pandemic steps towards increased mental care for their employees. CHG has implemented both male and female counselors in their workspace, allowing employees to seek counseling on a day-to-day basis, without having to leave their place of work.
Not only have some businesses made extra steps to care for their constituents' mental wellness, but so have schools, with one program in Texas, Vida Clinic, gaining great success. Vida Clinic is now a resource in more than 50 schools in the state which provides on-site counseling for students and faculty alike.
Schools have also shown a specific discretion for the mental health of student-athletes, such as Illinois Wesleyan University. This university has created a “Care Team,” in partnership with the NCAA. This team, made of coaches, teachers, and staff have gone through extra training relating specifically to recognizing mental illness amongst their student-athletes, providing wellness resources, and speaking with students confidentially concerning their mental health.
These services do not only benefit those with mental illness, but anyone who receives them. “The programs improved students’ social and emotional skills, attitudes, and behavior … participants showed improvements in academic performance,” according to the American Psychological Association.
A second approach to mental health support has manifested itself through safe, calming spaces engineered to allow employee relaxation. Many organizations have introduced, “recharge rooms,” which offer a wide array of methods to relieve stress for employees and students. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mount Sinai hospital in New York City offered its nurses and doctors recharge rooms to help them deal with the day-to-day stress of frontline pandemic healthcare work. Mount Sinai claims that these rooms offer users benefits such as, “stronger immune system, healthier microbiome, improved mental health, improved heart rate, lower blood pressure, reduced stress, and anxiety.”
At the end of the day, all sorts of organizations benefit top-down when it comes to the prioritization of mental health, from their employees to their bottom line.
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The Zone is focused on putting wellness coaching in every student-athlete’s pocket so they can feel and perform at their best.