Mental Health Awareness Week 2026 💚🎗

Mental health in the workplace is no longer a “nice to have” conversation — it’s an essential part of building a healthy, productive and positive working environment. Especially for us at Cliffe House Training Academy where a lot of our team work remotely, we have responsibility to ensure our team feel supported, connected to each other and valued not only professionally, but personally too.

When employees feel mentally well and emotionally supported, the benefits are felt across the entire organisation. We find our team are often more engaged, motivated and confident in their roles. Communication improves, collaboration becomes stronger and overall productivity naturally follows. More importantly, workplaces become environments where people genuinely enjoy coming to work, feel respected and know they can be themselves without fear of judgement.

However, supporting mental health is about far more than improving performance and ensuring your team is productive. It is about recognising that employees are human beings first. Everyone faces challenges at different points in their lives, whether that is stress, anxiety, burnout, personal difficulties or simply the pressures of balancing work and home life. This is why we feel it is important to create a culture where people feel safe to speak openly and ask for support and this can make a huge difference to an individual’s wellbeing and confidence.

Mental Health Support at Cliffe House Training Academy

At Cliffe House Training Academy, supporting wellbeing is embedded into the ethos of our organisation. Due to the nature of our roles being remote, the importance of connection and team support is a priority. At the start of each month, the team comes together for a meeting where updates are shared, ideas are discussed and, importantly, time is dedicated to wellbeing-focused activities. These moments allow colleagues to reconnect, support one another and strengthen relationships that can sometimes be harder to maintain in remote working environments.

Here's what some of our team have to say about the support we offer:

“Tori and Octavia and the Cliffe House Training Team support my mental health with caring and understanding check-ins, and the team meeting every month offers us a chance to come together as a group, catch up and spend quality time together”

– Natasha, Marketing Manager

“I always feel my mental wellbeing is supported through Octavia and Tori checking in on us, offering guidance, and creating a calm, positive environment. The monthly meetings really help because they bring everyone together, keep communication clear, and remind us we’re part of a supportive team.”

– Suzie, Early Years Assessor

“Our monthly team meetings are something I always look forward to, with our busy day to day roles, it’s lovely to come together to support each other, share ideas and have a good giggle. I love how we all take it in turns to organise well-being team social days out too, it keeps us motivated as a team, builds stronger relationships together and really helps boost our mental health too when life can be so busy”

– Tori Doherty, Training Manager

Having regular opportunities to connect as a team helps us to reduce feelings of isolation, encourages open communication and reminds our team that they are part of something bigger, without them everything we do and achieve wouldn’t be possible! Even small wellbeing initiatives can have a lasting impact when they are delivered consistently and with genuine care.

We have created a positive workplace culture that is built through understanding and support. Employees are far more likely to thrive when they know there is an open-door approach and a team around them that genuinely cares. At Cliffe House Training Academy, there is a strong ethos of support that is always there, and the team knows they are never alone in facing challenges.

As conversations around mental health continue to grow, organisations have an opportunity to lead with compassion and create workplaces where wellbeing is valued just as highly as success. By investing in people, encouraging connection and fostering supportive cultures, organisations can create environments where both employees and employers flourish together. Supporting and promoting a positive mental well-being shouldn’t just be something that is focused on when there is a budget to spend, a day to celebrate or when someone reaches out, it should be something that is promoted daily, with every interaction, at every opportunity.

Our final thoughts...

People often focus on saying nice things or giving positive feedback when they feel a person needs it most but imagine how that person would feel if this was something you did all the time, if when you saw some good practice you recognised that, if they did something that was helpful to yourself or someone else, you recognised that. Those things can go a long way in helping someone to feel valued and feel good about themselves.

Lets end here with the age old saying of treat others as you wish to be treated yourself and lets promote positive mental wellbeing not just this week on Mental Health Awareness Week but every week!