Newsroom leaders: are you looking for a New Year's resolution idea? Then sign up for the free mental health management training, courtesy of Headlines Network, an organisation set up to promote more open conversations about mental health in the media industry.
Run by the founders and journalists Hannah Storm and John Crowley, limited places will be available to attend virtual, interactive workshops from 17 January to 3 March 2023, supported by the Google News Initiative.
The project has been inspired, and run in collaboration with, Sarah Ward-Lilley, a former managing editor of BBC News. The workshops will be two-hour, role-play-based sessions where participants can act out and observe scenarios based on pre-set or personal experiences. Then they break to discuss what worked and what could be improved.
Headlines Network had piloted these sessions earlier in the year with two anonymous organisations, which confirmed both the demand for the training and the effectiveness of the approach. Hired actors played the role of staff members approaching their bosses to talk about their mental health.
Actors displayed subtle red flags to look out for, like verbal cues or body language, that would indicate they were struggling with their mental health. This showed that newsroom leaders need to learn more about language, mental health literacy, signposting and empathy skills. The workshop participants will watch videos of the role-playing sessions.
"We shouldn't expect people to know this," says Crowley, noting that though mental health is still a difficult subject to broach in journalism, change is underway.
"We're working in a macho, hard-nosed environment where we’ve already preached to people about how the world is changing in terms of notions around mental health. But we’ve been slow to practice it ourselves.
"There is a taboo around people putting their hand up and saying they’re struggling. On the part of managers, a lot of them realise they want to help, but don't know how."
Read more: "Newsroom leaders need to have the mental health skillset on top of all the others"
The news industry is one where working hard in a fast-paced environment is required to progress. As such, journalist's mental health can slip under the radar, left to deal with later in their career.
"We’re not complaining about that. We realise journalists work in pressurised environments, but there’s a cost that can come with it if that’s taken to extremes and those environments become toxic and intimidatory.
"You can still do dynamic work, but you’ll get more productivity of your journalists if they’re not stressed, thinking of leaving, or needing to take a mental health sick day off because they can’t approach their bosses."
Managers, too, need self-care and juggling pressures. Part of the training will include self-care tips, boundary setting and leading by example. As Headlines Network's other co-founder Hannah Storm has said previously, mental health is like an oxygen mask: you need to put yours on first.
Visit Headlines Network for more information on the sessions and how to sign up.
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