RU Well Aware? NFU members work to raise awareness of mental wellbeing

There is a growing recognition that mental wellbeing is something that touches on every one no matter where you might live whether in the countryside or city.

NFU member and County Chair for Lancashire, Olly Harrison and Nuffield Scholar, Aarun Naik talk about the work they're doing to break down the barriers to talking about mental wellbeing:

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In general terms people living in the country side are more likely to have better mental health than those living in cities or towns but  tend to have less access to mental health advice and services and our less likely to seek help than urban dwellers.

Are farmers at risk?

One factor that contributes to the development of mental health issues is stress and farmers are no strangers to stress.  Stress can come from lots of different factors such as unstable commodity prices, poor weather and uncertainty about Brexit and the whole future of British farming to mention just a few!

For NFU member Olly Harrison the understanding that mental health is something which touches every one came after a close friend tragically took his own life.

“I was totally surprised when a close friend died and had no idea that he had been trying to cope with problems for a long time – if I had I would have done something to help," Olly says, "I found out that there was nothing rare about mental health and that a big proportion of the population suffers from some sort of problem during their life.

"I was fortunate in knowing Aarun Naik who used to work for the NFU though nowadays works as a counsellor. Aarun secured a Nuffield Scholarship and spent time looking at the issue of mental wellbeing and how farmers are affected. I got in touch with Aarun and found out that in Australia a lot of work has been carried out in the farming industry to raise awareness about mental wellbeing, how to spot the signs if someone is suffering and how to sign post to where help is available.”

See also: NFU18 - Future proofing your business by safeguarding your people - watch again

Aarun says, “I had a talk with Olly and found out about his friend. We decided to work together to put together a workshop for farmers and people in allied industries such as agronomists and dealers. I wrote the workshop drawing from my knowledge as a counsellor, findings from my scholarship and experiences of similar events I had attended in Australia and New Zealand. Olly came up with the workshop name, ‘RU Well Aware?’.

"The aim of the workshop is to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing in agriculture; to help people recognise the signs of stress and know where to sign post to get more help.We secured financial sponsorship from Yorkshire Bank and venues from the NFU North West."

Olly says, “We were both really pleased by the response we had from farmers. We thought that we might struggle to get people to come along but meetings have been well attended.

"What has surprised me is just the openness of people who have come to our workshops and enthusiasm to get issues out in the open and to start tackling them. I think that often the first step in dealing with stress and other issues is to talk about them. To have someone who will listen. I hope that we will run more workshops later in the autumn this year."