For many years, despite a robust health system on the island, mental health issues were always left on the back burner.

The Richmond Foundation – a leading NGO in the mental health sector – identified and obtained funds for a project aimed at establishing the level of mental health issues among employees as well as the possible rapid identification of problems and solutions.

The project, coordinated with employers’ associations and their members, including the Malta Chamber, the Malta Employers Association and the Chamber of SMEs involved a research to establish a clear picture of the situation in hundreds of enterprises. The results of this study were in turn used to formulate a manual with guidelines of how to identify such problems among employees, as well as parameters for monitoring the evolving situation.

In all, some 700 enterprises participated in this project through surveys and audits.

In an overwhelming majority of the cases, mental health illnesses were closely linked to depression caused either by personal problems or by work-related stress and anxiety. The project’s main aim was to raise awareness about problems which employers could have on their own work floor without them noticing.

The results have been encouraging.

During the end-of-project audit, it was noticed that the number of employers identifying and recognising mental health problems among their workforce has increased, and new referrals for action were made to the same Richmond Foundation.

The project aimed at increasing the number of clients referred to the Foundation by 10 percent. This project has significantly improved the working environment of enterprises that did not have a mental health policy in place. Moreover, following this project, a number of companies also decided to implement new policies aimed at reducing stress within their working environment.

www.richmond.org.mt