Wyboston Lakes Resort’s Head of People & Development, Sophia Montagna has become the first certified EventWell Mental Health Champion.
The charitable social enterprise EventWell created The Champions by EventWell programme to train event industry professionals to become Mental Health Champions within their organisation. This means they will be able to raise awareness of mental health amongst their team, encourage positive mental health within their organisation, challenge mental health stigma, and provide peer support to their colleagues.
Montagna enrolled on the course after the Bedfordshire-based events and training resort signed the EventWell Manifesto, which calls for the mental health of all event industry professionals is supported and protected.
Montagna said: “I had already trained as a Mental Health First Aider and, as a business, it has long been a priority. I enrolled on the course and completed each module on a month-by-month basis. I developed a Mental Health Action Plan, which I will now begin implementing across the resort.”
She continued: “Just behind paramedics and firefighters, the events industry was voted the fifth most stressful. It’s reported that 1 in 3 event professionals will suffer or have suffered from poor mental health during their career. More than 80% in Right Angle Events’ recent research reported they find working in the sector stressful.”
Helen Moon, Chief Executive of EventWell, said: “We are delighted to have officially welcomed Sophia as our first official and fully trained EventWell® Mental Health Champion. Mental health champions support primary mental health intervention and prevention in the workplace, and by proactively supporting the mental wellbeing of teams and people help to prevent unnecessary mental decline and ill health. We are delighted to be working with Wyboston Lakes Resort and looking forward to fully supporting Sophia in her role.”
The Champions by EventWell programme includes the ‘six mental health at work core standards’ set out in the Stevenson/Farmer Thriving at Work Review 2017 commissioned by the UK Government. The standards were developed as part of the Mental Health at Work Commitment by Mind and adapted by EventWell for the events industry with the addition of a seventh standard. This standard covers onsite mental health and provides a quality framework to place mental wellbeing at the heart of an organisation’s culture and a movement that drives organisational policy, procedure, and strategy.
