National Stress Awareness Day takes place on Wednesday 1st November 2023, the focus of the day is to raise awareness of the effects of psychological distress in the workplace and strategies to address it.
Nationally, in recent years 41% of employees experienced poor mental health caused by work, and over 14 million working days were lost due to stress, depression and anxiety.
Stress at work can be particularly profound for the 1 in 7 working people who juggle their job with caring responsibilities. In the recent State of Caring report (Carers UK, 2022) it was found that 75% of carers worry about continuing to juggle work and care, 65% felt anxious about caring while working, and 74% felt tired at work because of their caring role.
Local carer Richard said “The stress is in having to work full time to provide an income for my family and then having to care for my wife and daughter, in what should be my time off.”
Support for working carers
If you are juggling working with caring, we want you to know that we are here to support you. You have a number of rights, including the right to flexible working. More information can be found on our factsheet here.
There are also a number of organisations that can support you to manage stress in the workplace, these include:
- Every Mind Matters a self-help resource that can get you started with a free NHS-approved Mind Plan. More information can be found on their website, here.
- Health in Mind a free NHS service for anyone over 18 in East Sussex experiencing symptoms of stress, anxiety, or low mood. They offer courses, one to one talking therapy, online treatment programmes. You can self-refer at www.healthinmind.org.uk.
- The Sussex Mental Healthline which can help if you need urgent or crisis support. Call them for free on 0800 0309 500
- Shout Sussex, by texting the word SUSSEX to 85258, people of any age can access a free, confidential, 24/7 service and have a text conversation with a trained volunteer.
East Sussex council have a Mental Health Services Directory on their website here.
Support for workplaces
1 in 8 (12%) carers said they needed a more supportive employer to stay in work (Carers UK, State of Caring, 2022). If you are a workplace, we are also here to support you through FREE membership (for workplaces under 250 employees, courtesy of East Sussex County Council) of the national Carers UK Employers for Carers resource. The purpose of Employers for Carers is to ensure that employers have the support to retain and empower employees with caring responsibilities. They offer training, support, reviewing of policies and networking, among others.
We can also support you to go through our Carer Friendly checklist and Carer Awareness training, more details can be found here.
If you would like to know more, then please get in touch.
Photo credit Elisa Ventur, Unsplash
