Blake Morgan signs Thames Valley Mental Wellbeing Charter

Leading law firm Blake Morgan LLP has signed the Thames Valley Chambers of Commerce’s Mental Health Wellbeing Charter as part of the firm’s commitment to supporting and ensuring mental wellbeing.

The Wellbeing Charter was included in the Chamber of Commerce’s Business Plan for 2020 and seeks to bring a wide range of organisations together to promote best practice and awareness of the role of businesses in supporting mental health in the community.

The Charter

The Charter asks each signatory organisation to make a series of commitments designed to help foster and provide a work environment that allows everyone to thrive and feel able to seek help where they need it. The commitments include:

• Providing an environment for employees to thrive in and encourage those who may be struggling to speak up and seek help.
• Through effective people management and training, fostering trust amongst our employees, supervisors and leaders, to help create a workspace where employees feel comfortable to self-identify as a person with a mental illness.
• Understanding that culture and leadership are pivotal to creating a healthy and thriving workplace.
• Ensuring leaders are open about mental health and mental illness
• Treating those experiencing mental illness as a business would with someone experiencing a physical illness in terms of support, time off, and a supportive return to work.
• Being honest and supporting people to live with ambiguity and uncertainty.
• Actively risk assess those who are most at risk of developing or have an existing mental health condition.
• Supporting our employees as parents and carers to enable their children to be well during this time.
• Being a learning organisation – establishing learning relationships with other organisations and sharing what the firm learns.

Bruce Potter, Blake Morgan’s Chairman, said:

The full Charter is available on the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce’s website here.