NAMI Toledo’s Crystal Heft, a family navigator, recently presented StigmaFree Company to Rudolph Libbe Group via a webinar.
NAMI’s StigmaFree Company is a company-driven initiative to reduce stigma, provide mental health resources, and improve navigation of mental health issues in the workplace. Stigma Free Company encourages Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), or business practices that take responsibility for a company’s impact on social well-being.
NAMI offers key recommendations as guidelines for companies to apply in a way that is appropriate for any organization.
A Stigma Free Company will:
- Create company policies regarding mental health
- Show support to employees
- Provide management training so they can have effective conversations about mental health and wellness with employees in relation to conversations about performance and discipline.
- Decrease stigma in the workplace. Using non-stigmatizing language, encouraging employees to support one another and providing resources about mental health helps create a healthy workplace culture.
“NAMI’s presentation was impactful and informative. It made you think differently about mental health and how to be accepting and supportive towards the subject,” says Kendallyn Jacobs, Human Resources Representative for Rudolph Libbe Group. “The Rudolph Libbe Group believes that this could help many organizations present mental health in a stigma-free way to their associates and NAMI is available to help give actual resources and guides to employees, supervisors, and leadership on ways they can help out others.”
Rudolph Libbe Group also maintains a new online wellness platform that includes several mental health courses that associates can take. “As you can tell, the mental health of our associates is extremely important to us,” Kendallyn adds, “We want to be sure that all associates feel supported within our organization. One of the pillars in our company’s roadmap is to have ‘One Healthy Team’ so wellness is one of our top priorities.”
National NAMI has enlisted several big-name companies as Stigma Free Company partners, including Starbucks, Showtime, Boeing, and Google. Locally, Crystal Heft has presented Stigma Free Company to: Boys and Girls Club of Toledo, Ebony Construction, the CPA company Clark, Schaefer, Hackett, Hylant Insurance, and Designetics.
“I am thrilled to present Stigma Free Company (SFC) to companies in the Toledo Area,” says Crystal, “I think that SFC is good for companies because it identifies ways to create a caring and compassionate workplace culture where mental health is recognized as a integral part of overall employee wellness and a direct link to productivity and satisfaction. The SFC presentation creates the opportunity for an ongoing partnership with NAMI to access education, support and resources.”
One in five adults experiences a mental health condition each year. This means mental illness stigma – a mark of shame – affects a significant chunk of the American population, including people in offices and workplaces across the nation. Eight in ten workers say shame and stigma prevent them from seeking treatment for a mental health condition. Decreasing stigma in the workplace could result in many workers who need assistance seeking mental health resources or treatment.
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