Civic Engineers is lucky to have so many strong, inspiring, talented women across the Practice, both as engineers and as part of our support team. For this year’s International Women’s Day, we thought we’d make the link with the important topic of ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing’ and talk about the diversity of our roles focusing on our People and Culture Advisor, Kat Dewell, who has recently trained as our first ever Mental Health First Aider.

Kat recently successfully completed a two-day course run by MHFA (Mental Health First Aid) England.  She found the training fascinating and is now keen to share her knowledge within the Practice. Kat explained, “The course was incredibly interesting. It taught me how to identify the signs and symptoms that may be associated with mental health issues and how to recognise whether a colleague may be suffering, as the role of a Mental Health First Aider is to signpost people to professional help.”

The first steps in her role of Mental Health First Aider will be to meet with Line Managers across our four studios to share her knowledge of how to identify signs of stress and help them provide the right support, primarily by making contact and offering reassurance.  This will be supported by a quarterly clinic where anyone who wants to have a confidential, non-judgmental chat can sit down with Kat.  Another aspect of her role will be to help with the return to work procedure for anyone who takes time off work due to mental health reasons. 

Promoting the importance of mental health and wellbeing is a theme throughout the Practice this year with various activities including regular yoga sessions in our London Studio and the Manchester team participating in a mental health and wellbeing workshop.