This week saw us mark Mental Health Awareness Week. Launched by The Mental Health Foundation 21 years ago, it has become one of the largest awareness weeks across the UK and globally.

Taking place from the 9^th to the 15^th May, our Leeds, Manchester, London and Glasgow studios have been observing the week with various activities, ranging from coffee mornings, mindfulness sessions and setting up wellness action plans, along with lots of other opportunities to get us outdoors and moving!

Every year The Mental Health Foundation set a theme, with this year’s dedicated to loneliness. Hoping to raise awareness of the impact of loneliness on our mental wellbeing and the practical steps we can take to address it, recent studies show us that one in four adults feel lonely some or all of the time, with lockdown measures compounding other economic and social impacts experienced by the those suffering with loneliness.

Here at Civic Engineers we aim to support our team by creating a healthy and happy workplace. We want everyone to feel appreciated, be able to be themselves at work and be treated fairly. Our people are our most valuable resource and we know their mental health and wellbeing impacts their happiness, productivity and collaboration at work. We continue to work together to create an open and honest platform where people feel comfortable discussing their mental wellbeing and we hope that through some of this week’s activities, we’ve facilitated opportunities for this.

On Tuesday we hosted coffee mornings across each of our studios. Bringing everyone together over tasty treats, fruit juices and good coffee, it gave our teams a chance to catch-up and connect with colleagues.

Other activities this week have included a studio-wide mindfulness session, the launch of our annual Civic Flower Show, scheduling in some time for our team to enjoy a lunchtime walk and finally, revisiting our Wellness Action Plans (our optional and confidential review of how best to support the mental health and wellbeing of our employees at work).

Thanks to all our team who played a part in organising this week’s activities and everyone who took part.