Managing Mental Health “Critical and compassionate conversations”

This course offers a unique collaboration between Birketts and Tom Oxley of Bamboo Mental Health, which allows for two insightful viewpoints to be brought to this incredibly challenging but manageable topic.

Tom Oxley

Tom is an independent consultant, specialising in mental health at work. He reviews employers, gives talks and trains people. His material comes from more than 450 interviews with employees who have experienced poor mental health – and more than 35 organisations that he has reviewed, from PLCs to local SMEs. He believes any employer can support any employee on mental health – but not at any cost. He recently spoke at the World Congress on Health and Safety and you can see his TEDx talk here.

Jonny Shevlane

Jonny Shevlane is an Employment Law Trainer at Birketts. Jonny has worked in employment law for six years advising employers and employees on all aspects of discrimination law. Jonny has a particular interest in disability discrimination and mental health and delivers training courses to HR and managers on managing mental and physical ill health in the workplace.

Why choose this course?

Tom and Jonny have developed an interactive case study which allows for detailed exploration of key touch points throughout the employment relationship where cases involving poor mental health are commonly mishandled.

Jonny will explore how employers can reduce their exposure to risks of Equality Act claims, via some important tips on best practices and procedures to follow. Whilst Tom will explore how support can be most effectively directed to employees, drawing on his years of experience of holding and coaching these challenging conversations.

The course will be equally useful to those with HR responsibilities as well as line managers who feel they currently lack confidence in their approach to managing employees with poor mental health.

Course Content

• How your employee induction can set the tone
• Acting on signs of poor mental health – proactive management and starting the conversation
• Absence management and team conversations
• Successful returns to work including: upskilling your managers on making valuable OH referral
• What great manager training looks like
• Throughout the case study we will also look at: how to approach the role of Occupational Health, the duty to make reasonable adjustments and how far you must go, understanding fair dismissals in these most challenging circumstances.

How we can deliver for you?

We deliver this course at Birketts’ offices on a pay per seat basis. This popular option offers participants the opportunity to explore and learn (in a confidential setting) not only from our trainers but also through the experiences of peers across other organisations.

Alternatively we can deliver “in house” for entire HR teams or manager groups. The course and case study can be further tailored to your own organisations bespoke needs.