Harnessing the power of a good yarn
esther.taunton@stuff.co.nz
Chewing the fat, kicking the dirt, having a natter – whatever you call it, the GoodYarn programme has helped get thousands of rural people talking about mental health.
The successful scheme is now set to expand to urban businesses and the trust behind it hopes to reach 15,000 Kiwi workers by the end of next year.
Good Programmes Trust chairwoman Dana Carver said the first step in addressing mental health in the workplace was being able to talk about it.
‘‘GoodYarn has been huge in the rural sector, increasing awareness of the signs and symptoms of common mental illnesses, and building confidence to identify it, talk about it, and know how and where to get help,’’ she said.
The programme had already reached more than 5000 farmers and rural professionals via a series of workshops around the country.
It had now been adapted to create the GoodYarn Workplace Programme, which would be rolled out to businesses, urban and rural, throughout the nation this year.
Twenty-two organisations were already licensed to deliver the programme across a range of industries.
Among them was the the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation (BCITO), which had identified poor mental wellbeing as a critical risk to its business.
Fleur McCorkindale, a BCITO risk and wellbeing adviser, said the GoodYarn programme was what the organisation had been looking for.
‘‘The in-house, peer-to-peer aspects of GoodYarn were particularly appealing to our staff and management,’’ she said.
By the end of 2020, the trust hoped to have 80 businesses participating in the GoodYarn programme.
‘‘In this way having ‘a GoodYarn’ will create culture change at an organisational level and collaboration will create culture change at an industry level,’’ Carver said.
Mental health is a hot topic in New Zealand workplaces, with the Institute of Directors recently including ‘‘mental health and wellbeing in the workplace’’ in its top five issues for this year.
Data on rural mental health shows the issue is particularly pressing in rural communities.
In the latest State of the Rural Nation survey, 70 per cent of respondents said they had felt more stress over the past five years.
The survey, by Bayer New Zealand and Country TV, asked participants questions about their views on topics impacting rural New Zealand and mental health.
Those surveyed said they’d felt more stress over the past five years, with 54 per cent attributing financial pressures as the main reason.
Environmental factors affecting work and livelihoods came in second at 49 per cent.