Communal staff offered mental health support

EMPLOYEES OF communal organisations are being offered support sessions to tackle the “mental health tsunami” caused by the pandemic.

Project Lily is organising the courses, held over Zoom and covering issues such as stress, anxiety, depression and self-care.

Slots are available until November, with further dates depending on the uptake.

The charity’s clinical director, Jonathan Dove, said that if the “Covid-19 lockdown was an earthquake, we have to respond now to the resulting mental health tsunami”.

Project Lily’s operations and development director Lisa Radford added that many in the community had been facing significant financial concerns and “huge worries” over health.

“We’re also getting a lot of relationship issues. Divorce has obviously become much more common with all the pressures. That’s something the Jewish community has to look at.”

Students and new graduates were also struggling with uncertainty over their futures, with some “turning to drugs”.

She felt communal organisations did “phenomenal jobs” in tackling mental health problems among their employees. But many were “very underresourced.

“What we’re trying to do is bridge that gap and provide a service that doesn’t cost anything so at least we can alleviate some of the strain.”

Project Lily began as the wellbeing arm of the Jewish Learning Exchange but has expanded its sphere of operations, having gained charitable status in 2017.

It has worked with organisations including Seed and the Campaign Against Antisemitism.