OK. So, let me introduce myself. So, you see the bottom right-hand corner there.

And that's just, that's me. And if I introduce you, I've been working in mental health, I think, for about 30 years now, and, like many of you, I, I imagine, you know, still find it fascinating as I'm sure you do veterinary science, and, I've worked in many different capacities within mental health. And over the last few years though, I've really begun to focus much more on the primary care.

Level of mental health and focusing again on mindfulness and well-being and My sort of career highlights really have been setting up services from a new and some of the research and some of the changes in practise that I've kind of, led and developed across the UK. But what I enjoy doing really such a lot is, this sort of stuff actually, because this is where it gets missed, you know, the, the, the mental health of the workplace. And what we know is that over the last few years, many of you will, I hope.

Perhaps recognise my name but be aware of the work that I've done with vets, and I've really got to understand much, much more over the last 3 to 4 years the unique pressures and the difficulties and the issues that impact most on people working in your industry, which was one of the reasons why, I chatted with, Dawn, the wonderful Dawn and Anthony Chadwick from the, the webinar that, because I've been doing these sort of well-being in the workshop through to a sort of, first responder course for a variety of different professions. Most recently prior to tonight's session, I've been doing a first responder course for those people working in the housing industry, housing associations who like you guys have to deal with rude people, difficult people, traumatic incidents. And they were really crying out, and what they asked for was a bespoke course rather than the generic mental health first aid, and I chatted with Anthony and with Dawn, and we decided that we would like to pilot one, a similar course, but see if we can't make it really fit.

Those of you working in the veterinary industry. So, With no more ado, I suppose we ought to start and I hope this isn't old for any of you that have done work with me before, but, the picture of the cat on the front is pretty much, I think, the, the philosophy that I try and live my life by, and that's that sort of, Anthropology of mental health and well-being really. And when we explore the anthropology of mammals, what we find is that You know, the mother cat, a classic mammal, the mother cat hears its its kitten crying, and the mother cat comes and fetches the kitten and stays with it and purrs and licks and comforts that kitten until it feels safe enough to get back out there and explore.

So the kitten learns that it's OK to mess up. It's OK to get things wrong. It's OK to get a bit lost every now and then.

It's OK to ask for help. It's OK to cry for help, because the kitten is always met with a warm, compassionate, understanding, soothing, and that's the big one, isn't it? The soothing response.

And then we look to the way we parent sometimes and the way we might treat each other in our workplaces, and when we mess up, you know, I wonder how often we are accepting and soothing and patient and warm and kind to ourselves. And to our colleagues and I guess over the years I've learned that Being self-critical and being hard on oneself takes takes us absolutely nowhere. So in the vein of that, I would, I would really love to encourage our attendees tonight and for the 4 sessions that we're going to do.

Please, please, please, have some warmth and compassion for yours truly here, me, and the course is run so much, so much better when you guys interact. And so, for those of you that haven't really ever wanted to interact. That this sort of course works so much better when we are using the chat function.

So you'll, you'll, you'll see on your on your screens that we have the Q&A. And so we can just go into the Q&A and use that. And it'd be really nice, I suppose, just if we are or if you can find your chat function.

So if you just hover over there, you'll see the chat comes up. And it'd be really nice just to, before we, we kick off really, just to get a sense of people's thoughts tonight, what you're hoping for, . Just to see that everyone's able to use that chat function.

So I'm just going to shut up for a few minutes. And if you just want to come on and say hi, I think it, it's really rather lovely and puts me at ease and once you've started chatting, it'll make it more likely that you'll feel able to give off your views as we go forward. So, I'm just going to wait a minute and just see if people just want to come in and tap in high, say if you want to say who you are.

And do that anonymously if you'd rather, or if you just want to use your first names. Yeah, we've got a few people coming in now and encourage us all. Hi, Jane, Emily, hi, Emily.

And hi all, oh, that's Laura coming in and Sophie. Hi, Sophie. And I'm not doing second names here.

I'm just saying hi. And there's Dawn from the webinar that saying hi to everybody. And I think, yeah, and we've got somebody come through in, in on the Q&A, and we've got Andy saying hi to the team, which is just wonderful.

So, I've started something here, haven't I? And Patrick, Patrick here from Bromley. That, that's just so nice.

So thank you all guys. I am going to ask you and keep putting things over to you because this is your course and it really isn't cemented in stone as to what we will cover. And so if I just start, thank you all so much.

It's lovely to have you all on board tonight. I am just going to, Move the slide forward. There we go.

So. I'm not anticipating that tonight's session, which is largely focusing on How you can bring an emotional health check into your practises where you work and where this sort of course works best is where people feel that they are supported enough and those of us who work in in in the in the actual business ourselves, who are going to become, as I hope many of you will be, the sort of mental health champion, the mental health. Lead perhaps for your practise, which would be a really great way for this to go.

So when I did the last one for the a number of housing associations, we had like a champion from tenant support. We had a we had a a mental health lead for A new tenants we had, so the different departments in these organisations did my course and then people took on a sort of role within them and took once they felt secure and at the end of the course, people felt able to say, well, I think I've got enough knowledge now to really help others and I suppose the wonderful thing about what you have in the UK with The veterinary industry is you do have the MetLife helpline and as opposed to some of the organisations I work with who don't have this, what you are able to say to people is, do you know what, there is a confidential email service and there's also a telephone, a telephone service. And it might be that a lot of what you do is almost directing people to that, but from a really much more knowledgeable, confident place.

So I would be, if at some point during our webinar tonight, you may not have decided, but if you're thinking that actually. My reason for coming onto this course is just to learn more about mental health. Fantastic.

However, if you're also thinking, I'd like to learn more about mental health and Possibly take on a sort of mental health lead role. And my belief is, is that if every veterinary practise in the country was able to have One or two people in each practise who were the mental health champions, who were the mental health first responders, and they took some level of responsibility, or let's lose the responsibility word, they took some level of interest and commitment to supporting the rest of their workforce. I think it would be such a valuable thing to do.

So as we're working through, if you're thinking, you know, that might be me, I'd love to hear about that, and I think it might give confidence to others that are coming in on this course or accessing it via the recording to also recognise that, you know, this is somewhere that we we might want to sort of take ourselves. And I'm just gonna share this with you because we know from numerous, numerous studies that Sometimes Veterinary practise isn't always the kindest, most compassionate workplace, and I don't think that's a reflection on the character of the professionals who come into this because as a whole, most vets I've ever, and I've interacted with so many now really do come from a place of caring, and I don't think you'd be working in the veterinary industry if you didn't. But maybe we're not so great at this.

Leading from the front with kindness for each other and for ourselves. And I just thought I'd share this from a brilliant book called . Intelligent kindness.

And this one here suggests that if we start with the, The, the, the Sort of what would that be about? 2 o'clock, wouldn't it? Kindness, and it just suggests that actually in our workplaces.

If we can Sort of become more mindful of the need for just bringing attention to being kind. And attentive To those that we work with. It results in a greater attunement with the needs, the moods, the Functioning Of our colleagues and with that attunement comes a real sense of improved trust of each other.

And with that improved level of trust, we start to get a greater alliance, i.e., we kind of work together more and for the benefit of the practise and perhaps for the benefit of ourselves as shared employees.

And what intelligent kindness and the research linked to this showed was that a workplace that imbues and connects with a, a, a real need for kindness in the workplace. Absolutely results in better outcomes, better outcomes for the pets you look after and the animals you look after, and better outcomes in terms of financial outcomes, even, better outcomes in terms of job satisfaction, and ultimately a greater sense of kinship. In the organisations we work for.

And This is a really one of the reasons why I believe, and the research is beginning to show. That some industries are asking instead of for. The Standard Very, very, widely used mental health first aid course is that the mental health first aid course.

I people are beginning to suspect a little bit too reactive, i.e. What we're training people to do is to spot mental illness and become a first aider.

And respond as a mental health first aider. What I've picked up in the veterinary industry is that I think we need a step before that, and the step before that is a mental health first responder for mental health and well-being. So we don't want to wait until somebody has a pathologized level of mental illness before we offer any support.

We want to be offering support, I believe, when we notice that there's a depletion in the well-being of our colleagues. And I suppose that's where this course, I hope, is going to be so different. And it's this, isn't it, now that most workplaces will have a physical first aid officer.

It's, it's time that we were doing the same thing for . For mental health and well-being. And I really believe that that's, that's, that's where, that's where we're at, .

Again, be really encouraged if you, if you're Singing from the same hymn sheet philosophically as I am. And I think others really benefit from, do you know, Mike, that is why I'm coming on this course tonight, or, you know, it's just because I want to learn a little bit more. So please, if you get a moment and you feel up to it, just do come in and say, so we've just had somebody come in.

It's Howard's just come in. Thank you, Howard. So true.

We need to break the cycle in the profession that poor well-being is the norm. Oh my God, thank you so much for that. So Howard is really coming in and, and, and, and I guess that would, that would be the, that would be the experience of many of the vets and veterinary nurses and receptionists and others that I've actually worked with since the time that I've been really linking into the mental health.

Emily and Jane have just come in with completely agree. That, that's music to my ear. It's always, always nice when you start a course and you get a sense that you're You're sort of getting it vaguely right.

So thank you guys. So, We'll get on to the actual emotional health check in 2 minutes, I promise. But I just wanted to explain how I hope, and Victoria's coming in with a loud definitely there, and I totally agree, that's wonderful.

I believe myself because I the university I work for, University of Northampton, is one of the leaders in the country for providing the mental health first aid course, and they, they kind of daftly I suppose, asked me to do some, write some stuff about them at my mental health aid course and Write an article looking at its applicability and the article I produced was a little bit critical, but where I was critical was because I believe sometimes we do need the mental health course, first aid course is a fabulous course, don't get me wrong, it's really, really good. My What I think won't work is I think it needs to be a different course for this particular profession as it did because your needs are so unique as were the ones of the housing profession. So without doubt what we know is that there's a real need, as we're beginning to see in the veterinary profession, and how this course is different is that we're going to focus, especially today, on let's catch and help people whose well-being.

It's just beginning to deteriorate. And the second reason that I hope that this course is going to be so different is that the curriculum for the mental health first aid is pretty set. You know, it's, it's fairly concrete and it's the same for every single workplace that you go into.

You can adapt it once you're a trainer, but all of the tools and all of the resources are are generic. What I've tried to do is think about the veterinary profession and to make this really fit yours now. What I was going to suggest was in a few moments I was just going to cover.

What we're going to cover in what we're going to be sort of exploring on our course. So, I'll just go back one. So on our course we're going to be looking today at developing an emotional health check that you can do on yourselves.

I hope it would be great if you do the emotional health check on yourselves in order to experience just how useful it is, because I really believe it's very useful. Before you try it on some of your colleagues. So let me just explain.

So session one is we're looking at the development of a mental health, well-being, emotional health check that my dream and my aim would be that those of you participating in the course, I hope will feel equipped to speak with your managers, speak with the practise manager, gain permissions or find a way to do this, but to offer an emotional health check to everybody in the, in the practise, you know, everybody. In the practise. Now, you may say that's too much for me, so use my slides, use the slides, train up somebody else, you know, .

Bring somebody else on, have a couple of you helping out with this would be where it works. And this has worked so well. So in one of the partnership home organisations I worked for the housing, every member of staff now gets an emotional health check just once a year.

And once you've done your emotional health check, you can check in yourself and . And, and, and just ensure, sort of that you. Your, your, your mental health, your well-being has either improved or whether it's it's begun to slip.

So the other real beauty of this approach is that you get a baseline score, a baseline level for where you currently are with your mental health, and that's the idea of the emotional health check. So with no more ado, I'm going to take you through the firsts content around well-being. And, I promise to be finished, a few minutes before, 9 o'clock.

My wife told me that there's something on the television that, she wants me to watch, and I always do as I'm told. It's good for my well-being. So, this is the definition of well-being that I love.

It's this 2nd paragraph here, this, this 2nd bullet. The combination of feeling good and functioning effectively. But including an acceptance that there will be negative emotions that show up in this profession of yours.

And well-being is when we are managing the negativity. And the negative emotions that show up successfully. I love that definition.

And I think that you are working in a profession where you are going to be confronted with negative emotion. In others, negative emotion in yourselves, sadnesses, frustrations. All of those difficult emotions, and when we know we've got well-being, real well-being, when Difficult stuff is happening.

And we're responding to that difficult stuff wisely, mindfully. And above all with kindness to self and others, and I think that's where, that's where I think we're really, really going. Do you know, Dawn, I'll be really curious to see whether this is something that you were saying earlier that the webinar vet has got a lot more, the organisation has got a lot more staff.

Maybe this is something that the webinar vet could Instigate within your staff group as well. Be quite interesting. Seligman is one of my favourite authors about mental health and well-being.

Obviously, I think Dawn's just come back to me, so I can't miss that 10, she said, definitely. So Anthony Chadwick will be getting his, Emotional health check tomorrow morning. Fabulous.

So the five components that we really that Seligman I guess would say compromise a real sense of well-being is when we are, and I love that you see it says perma, so it's that sense of, you know, it's there a lot of the time, not that clever. So it's that sense that we are able to engage with positive emotions when positive emotions are, are triggered and when positive emotions are congruent to the situation we're in. And if we're able to do that, Good sign that we've got pretty good well-being.

If we are engaged with what's happening in our lives, with the people around us, rather than. Moving into a sort of disassociative stance where we're feeling very alone, even though we're amongst the busy workforce. So it's that sense of being engaged with the people around us, and.

Seligman would also say that we are well-being is also hugely influenced by making the most of the relationships of the people that we see the most, and I, when I worked for the NHS, probably saw a lot more of my immediate sort of leadership team than I certainly did of my wife and my children because you were with them sort of 7 hours Monday to Friday, and so the relationships are so important. And particularly of relevance, I think, for the nursing profession and some of the research into suicidality amongst nurses, and amongst, the veterinary profession. Links to when people lose their sense of meaning, .

Linking into why we became members of this profession, nurses, vets working in this profession and if we lose that sense of meaning, there's a direct correlation to a shift in, in well-being. And then there's this one which is huge, isn't it? And it's that sense of finishing the day with a sense of accomplishment and Huert goes back and says, It's the role of bringing mindfulness, being mindful of positive emotion, engagement, being mindful of the relationships we have, bringing meaning, mindful meaning to stuff, and actually being in the here and now and recognising accomplishment and letting it in.

And this is the stuff that seems to build positive emotion. And as you're sitting here, engaged with that. I suppose I wonder how many of us are sitting there and thinking, oh goodness me, .

Yeah, that's been missing for a while or I could do a little bit more of that. And I think a lot of people do, but they need help to really get a sense of, Where we're going. So the emotional health check.

That we're going to be, I'm going to be suggesting tonight is made up of four components. I should mention at this place because Dawn will shoot me if I don't, that when Dawn sends the recording out probably tomorrow now, when the webinar that sends tonight's recording out and the slides, they're also going to send through, there's an accompanying workbook to this with all of the materials and all of the tools. So that you aren't going back into your workplaces empty handed.

The bespoke. Workbook will have all of the tools you will need to improve and help. Yourself and your colleagues with their well-being and their mental health, including the emotional health check.

So let me introduce you to the when webs. So I like the short web webs because it's pretty much all we need. Now, doesn't show up too great on the PowerPoint, but I'll just talk you through it.

And I wonder if we could tonight. In a moment, not yet, give ourselves a score tonight. So it's almost like a dry run, and this is the best way to learn how to do it for our colleagues.

So step one of the emotional health check is, let's say your practise manager shows up and says, you know, I saw on the on the intranet that we can all access an emotional health check on a Monday afternoon for an hour throughout the year, and I've come for mine. And we say, OK, lovely. Would you like to just fill in for me how you've been feeling over the past 2 weeks and just tick the box that best describes your experience?

And then we hand over the when webs to. And our practise manager, I'm choosing them, sits down and says, well, I've been feeling optimistic about the future. Now, if you score, none of the time, that's a one.

If you score rarely, it's a 2, some of the time it's a 3. I often feel optimistic about the future as a 4, and all of the time is a 5. Now it's a really simple.

Very evidence-based tool the web webs. And the beauty of the webs is there's none of that sort of cosmopolitan scoring, . Grid, you know, if I score, if I score 8, let's say, on this, a little box comes up and says, unfortunately, this tells me that you have very, very poor well-being and that you need to do something about it.

This doesn't work that way. It really is purely subjective, but it gives you a baseline. But it also allows you to be curious if you are scoring.

In the none or the rarely, because if there's any of these, you're scoring in the none or the rarely. The research by the wonderful Seligman would be saying, well, that would be an indicator that that's an area that you probably need to do a little bit of work. So I wonder if you guys would mind scoring yourselves as we work through the The the different domains.

So the first one just asks, I've been feeling optimistic about the future. Over the past two weeks, how true does that feel? I've been feeling optimistic about the future.

None of the time, rarely, some of the time, often, or all of the time. We just give ourselves a, a score for that one and. Add it up in your mind or if you've got a pen and paper there, you'll have the booklet next week.

I've been feeling useful. A real good indicator of well-being that isn't it? You know, I've times in my life when I've been new into a profession and newly into a new job, and, you know, I'm not actually doing anything.

I'm sort of shadowing for the 1st 3 weeks and it really impacted on my mental health and my well-being. So again, none of the time, rarely, some of the time, often or all of the time. I'm hoping some of you are already scoring all of the time, all of the time.

I kind of doubt it, but wouldn't that be lovely? I've been feeling relaxed over the past two weeks. I've been feeling relaxed.

I think I would reword that if they gave me the choice. I would say I've been able to relax, but The proper wording is I've been relaxed. And again 12345.

I've been dealing with problems well. 12345, have a think about that one. I've been thinking clearly.

None of the time, rarely, some of the time, often or all of the time. I've been feeling close to other people. And finally, I've been able to make up my own mind about things.

And then very simply, we just give ourselves or we give the person that we're offering the emotional health check to, is we give them their baseline score. So at the moment, you know, you're bubbling along there at . At at say 30 or 25, which is a, you know, which is which is really good.

Let's have a little look. Is there anywhere on there that concerns you might be what we ask somebody. Is there anyone there where you'd like to be scoring a bit higher and somebody might say, you know, I would like to feel a bit more relaxed, very commonly, that's the one they talk about, or I would like to be thinking a little bit more clearly, a bit less fuzzily.

And so we just make a note of that. Just make a note of any changes that person may want to make, and you'll see why in a few moments' time. And the emotional health check normally takes about 20 minutes to do with an individual.

And then step 2 is we use the life balance tool. And this adds a very different dimension, a very mindful dimension into this one. So I'm just gonna sort of, Whiz us through this one here and just see what comes up here.

So when we do this, we just need to say to people, again, this is a very subjective. Score here All we would like you to do is just have a think about how important each one of these different domains or areas. Is to you where 1 is not important, and 10 is very important.

And the actual tool that we use, which is in your workbook, explains. All of the, the, the, the sort of, approach that the person needs to take. So let me do this for myself, and I wonder whether you guys would mind just sort of playing with this.

I'm going to ask you to please do your own emotional health check when the over the next week in preparation for next week's webinar if you wouldn't mind. Now when we talk about family. And the practise manager says, What do you mean by family?

What, what we're talking about here is your extended family and whatever that means to you. So for me, for instance, my extended family would be aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, that sort of stuff. My brothers, sisters, kids, wife, mom, they're they're my immediate family.

So how important are your extended family? How important do they feel to you? And I would have said they're about a 3, my cousins etc.

Now, with this second one is, how important. How important is your intimate other or the person that you're in a relationship with? And if the practise manager says, but I'm single at the moment, I'm not in a relationship, you say, Well, how important is it for you?

To be in a relationship. So it doesn't matter if they're not currently in a relationship, is my point. If you have children, how important is being a parent to you?

And if the person you're doing it with doesn't have children, how important are the children in your life, the nieces, the nephews, the godchildren, the friends? So so far I'm scoring about a 3 for family, extended family. Mrs.

Scanlon is my 9. Parenting is my 10. How important are friends to you?

I'd say they were about an 8. How important is your work? I'd say that was about an 8 as well.

How important is learning new stuff? At 8. How important is just having fun, just having a lot of fun and enjoying myself.

I'd say that was a kind of a 9 maybe. And how important is a sense of spirituality, meaning and purpose in life? And I'd say that was a 9 as well.

And how important is it that you're a good citizen, that you're a good member of your community, that you are engaged with your community. And I'm afraid that I run along on a 2 on that one. And how important is it that you are in good physical shape, that you're looking after yourself, that you're sleeping, that you're eating well, that you're kind of fit and healthy.

And I'd say that was about an 8. And how important is social media to you? And I'd say that was about a one.

So what we do with our emotional health check is we've got our WEMWebs, we've got our score, and we've highlighted a couple of areas that we would like to be different. And then we look at the score that we've given ourselves, and now we've got a real idea of what we really value most in our lives. So for me it would be, Mrs.

Scanlon, my kids, fun, friends, work, spirituality. They're the things that really matter to me, so I say, OK, they're the ones I scored highly on. And then we ask ourselves this question.

So how consistent are you then? How much time, effort, and headspace are you currently giving to the stuff that really matters and to the stuff that doesn't matter at all, and what we're looking for is a disparity or a gap between the two scores. So luckily, I only, I scored my extended family as a 3, and the time, effort, and headspace they get is about a 2.

So I'm. Pretty much in balance there. Mrs.

Scanlon is a 9 and I'm much better than I used to be now, and so. She's about an 8 in time in the headspace. My kids are a 10, but I give them much less time, effort, and headspace now because, you know, they're just not at home as much as they were.

And I think about them most days, but I'll give them, they're about a 9. They used to be a 10. Time and headspace they get.

And notice there's no judgement going on here. And then I say, how consistent am I with my friends and I love my friends, but that's running at about a 3. Hm, so I'm going to start that one because there's a real gap there.

There's a disparity between the two. How important was work? I said it was about an 8.

How much time, effort, and headspace does work get about a 10? I'm gonna start that as well. I'm in line with education and training.

I, I love just learning new stuff. I'm completely in balance. Oh gosh, I'm not.

I'm completely out of balance with just recreation and fun. I kind of save it for the weekends, so by dint. I give less time and effort to that than I scored it.

So I'd say about a 5, and I scored it about an 8 or a 9. Spirituality, because I meditate every day, I'm absolutely 9 and a 9. I'm imbalanced citizenship wise.

A one and a one. Physical self-care is interesting. I would say.

It's about a 5. So that, I'm gonna start that one as well. And social media is really interesting because I gave that a 1, but the time, effort and headspace I spend on social media is probably about a 7.

So there's a gap there. Now, all we do is we turn to ourselves if we're doing this for ourselves, or we turn to the colleague that we're doing this with and we say, you know, is there any area Where you notice And you find yourself thinking, oh goodness me, perhaps I need to change that. And what we say back to our clients, our colleagues, is we say, you know, you only make a change if that change will enhance your well-being and bring you to a happier place.

So don't change anything unless by making a change, it's gonna take you towards improved wellbeing or just feeling happier and better about yourself. And I know for a fact that if I saw more of my really good friends, my life would be happier and my well-being would improve. And I absolutely know that if I was a bit fitter and did a little bit more exercise.

I'd probably drank a little bit less beer. I would feel better and I'm pretty sure I would feel happier, and I know for a fact that if I could be more mindful about my social media use and just cut that right back, that would give me time to focus on the stuff that really brings me joy and pleasure. So I wonder if you're beginning to see where we're going with this emotional health check.

We have the WEM webs and we've isolated a couple of areas or just one area that we could probably make a change, just a tiny change, and maybe one or two areas from the life balance tool where we might want to make a change. And at this point. I'm just going to bring you through to the great dream.

And We go all positive on this, we just say, look, Have a look at this list of evidence-based. Domains, evidence-based factors that really will make a difference to your your happiness and your well-being. And Again, it's one of those clever mnemonics that spells out a great dream, and what we find is that just random acts of kindness, doing things for others.

Would almost certainly make us happier. Connecting more with the people that matter links through to the last one, doesn't it? Exercising more links through to The well-being tools that we've done already.

Being a bit more mindful about stuff. Continuing to learn new things, not only about our work, but about completely diverse topics is known to be a great. Way of improving well-being, having a real sense of where we're going in our lives.

Getting a bit better at bouncing back when we've, sort of fallen off the shelf a bit. And deliberately and on purpose, making an effort to focus on what's good about our life as well as what's not quite so great. And just finding a real sense of comfortableness with who we are.

And maybe recognising and finding meaning where we can find meaning. And just sharing with people the great dream. And then just very simply, you'll find in the workbook what we ask people to do is we, we have a well-being plan and the well-being plan just ask people.

From this emotional health check, are there 3 changes? That you think would benefit your well-being. And why don't we kind of act on that.

And make them small tiny changes and if they say I've only got 2 changes, fabulous. If they say I have only one area I want to change, fabulous. And that, dear friends, is the emotional health check.

Let me just take it back. So emotional health check is very simple. We, we do the web webs and we highlight any area where we feel we could.

Impact positively. We then look at our lives and our balance and look at the, whether we're living our lives in touch with the stuff that really matters. And we choose to make one or two changes there perhaps, or just one.

And then we have a look at the great dream and we see if there's a change we might make linked to the great dream. And then we look. That's our Well-being plan which is included in the workbook, which I, I'm afraid I just couldn't, I didn't have the IT skills to get it onto a PowerPoint, and we just look and we say, OK.

And we agree with that person. Let's see if we can't make 3 changes, and then we should just, let's just catch up for a coffee in Kind of like 3 or 4 weeks' time and see whether those changes have made an impact on improving your well-being. I'm going to ask for some feedback here.

Is everybody because I do this so much sometimes I make the mistake of thinking this is just so, so easy. I really believe it is. How do people feel about completing that for themselves, or once you became comfortable with that, would that be something that you think would help your colleagues?

Please, please, if you get If you, if you, have, have a moment, just come back to me on that one. Is, is, is that something that you think is going to help you? Doing your emotional health check and making 12 or 3 changes your choice, little tiny changes, nothing huge and major, because that's where we get it wrong with well-being is we expect people to make massive changes and they just won't.

So tiny little changes. So thank you, I've got someone coming back here. After having broken it like that, I think it could help me, and I'm going to put it into action.

Yeah, thank you, Emily, and definitely lots of you coming back, you can include as part of one to ones. Yeah, that's the way to do it, you know, is if you're doing a 1 to 1, if you've got students as well, is, is just to, to do it there. And then the real thing is, is you get your baseline and, one to ones are a great idea.

Thank you, Emily, Laura, Sophie, really coming in. And I'm going to get a great dream poster. Yeah.

The Great Dream is fabulous, and if you go on the Great Dream website, just Google Great Dream and, the posters, they, they all the posters are free. It is rather marvellous, the great dream stuff. How it's come back.

I'd like just to read that, that really agree with all these changes. I think some of the problems in the profession are actually implementing these changes, whether that be through support from above or the pressure from others, with the idea that you aren't struggling, then you aren't performing. Oh God, how sad is that.

And I think the only way to change that, Howard, is by doing what we're doing today is by beginning to place real importance, I think, and I love this from Sophie, that having a structured questionnaire sparks off a conversation when someone needs some help. Yeah, that's the way I use this is we use this with you do your well-being check and then they look at it and they, their emotional health check, and they say, do you know what, . I think I'd like to make, I think I could make 3 changes, and it's as simple as that.

Thank you all for your response. I'm just going to ask you to, use the booklets that you're being sent, the workbook, and have a look at the tools and do, do come back to me. And remember, I said earlier, if there's anything we're not covering, so session one is well-being, session two, we're exploring, identifying depression and anxiety, and working with our colleagues.

Session 3, we're looking at How we actually speak to someone, how we actually liaise and chat to somebody who is struggling. And session 4 is, I thought it'd be really helpful for you guys to look at how we might do a psychologically enhanced A critical incident analysis for when something horrible, difficult, painful, saddening, tragic happens within our practises. If there's anything I'm not covering, come, please do come straight back to the webinar there and let them know and they'll let me know.

And so Stacey's come back and allow people to open up as they feel the need but with openness that it can be anything and not just a work-focused issue. Absolutely. This doesn't work if we do.

If we harness it to our profession, it really doesn't. So the last thing, sort of area I just wanted to cover, which is again in, in, in your workbook, is, when you go back, sometimes people say to me, oh God, Mike, if somebody scored very low on the question one when webs, you know, which is, Let me just remind you, so question one is optimism. I've been feeling optimistic and you know, if somebody comes back and says, I'm not feeling optimistic at all at the moment.

One of the recommendations I make in your workbook, and I've included a whole sort of strategy around this, is to sit down and use the character strengths assessment and help that person find their top character strength and use that top character strength to build their optimism. And you'll see it's all in your workbook, but it is just, I, I would really recommend everybody do a character assessment. It's so interesting.

You, and it's a brilliant piece of research that's put that together. Seligman and Peterson for some years. The second Weeb score suggests, actually, you know, have you been feeling useful and someone that's scoring low on that one.

And I make a few suggestions about using an exercise called Bold which puts people into a mindful place 4 or 5 times a day. And the other thing in your workbook is all of my meditations from the mindfulness courses. And so sometimes it's just building your mindfulness will allow you to recognise that you might not feel useful, but boy you are.

And we use, there's the bold. One of my favourite exercises, something I do every day of my life is, you know, stop by taking a breath. Check in on myself, see, see how I'm being with people, how I'm being with myself, lean in and check in that the way I'm behaving, living is.

In touch with who I want to be. And finally, if what I find I don't like, do something different. And if I find something I really like, carry on doing more of it.

Wonderful, isn't it? For those of your colleagues or for yourself, if you're struggling to feel relaxed, the booklet takes you through a couple of very simple relaxation strategies, including the progressive muscular relaxation download which I think I may have sent to Dawn, and if I haven't, I will, I promise, tomorrow. Or if you can find, you don't need to go out to a yoga class, if you were to go onto YouTube and think about yoga, just, the most wonderful way of relaxing.

I've included in the booklet the leads on the stream Sleep meditation, which is a very relaxing. Strategy if you're struggling with being a bit overwhelmed by worry, the booklet also contains a very useful exercise about how to become a really good warrior. And I've got people just coming in.

Yeah, it got something, yeah, vet yogi geared for vets and the video, ah, yoga geared for vets. Not come across that. Thank you so much for Howard.

Howard, perhaps we'll try and find the link for that at some point and get it out to people. And again we've had Gabriela coming back and saying, Yeah, tools like this are so important to incorporate into mentoring, particularly the evidence base does say of recent graduates and students. You're quite right there, Gabriella.

When we're define it's about our ability to think clearly, and I find very often we don't think clearly because we're holding our breath or we're breathing too shallowly. So the booklet gives you a whole range of techniques to help people breathe. If they're scoring low on Weeb 6, which is feeling close to other people, I just recommend a really interesting exercise, which is to have a look at your phone, and a little piece of research I came across saying that normally if you have a look at the photographs that you have on your gallery on your phone, you find the the people that matter most in your life are there and then use the bold exercise to Encourage you to spend more time with them.

Frighteningly, when I look at the photos on my phone, it's nearly all of my dog. I'm not sure what that says. He is rather lovely.

And when web 7 is if we've been struggling with making up my own mind, a wonderful, film to watch, which is called Passengers on the Bus that will really give you some insight. How to make a bit more. Of that I'm aware I've kind of.

Move through those quite quickly, but the booklet does it all for us, and if anyone's got any questions on any of those, please bring them next week. The real thing I wanted to cover tonight is I wanted to be sure that everybody would feel confident. And competent enough to do an emotional health check on themselves.

And ergo then to incorporate into one to ones appraisals or even regular well-being checks. So I'm gonna share with you something I've been doing with the GPs. I'm very aware we've only got 4 or 5 minutes, but we might go over just about a minute or two.

So if the practise is not in a great place, and if the morale is low. Practise worry time can be a really useful thing to do. When you have your practise meeting.

Just once in a while, do some practise worry time. Allocate 20 minutes when it gets to any other business. And everybody in the room just writes down one or two worries.

And then we ask everybody in the room to differentiate the actual worries from those that are just hypotheticals, you know, what it's. And then using all of the brains in the room. From everybody's worries, choose 4 or 5 actual worries.

And negotiate in order to do one thing about each one of those 5 worries. You know, I'm worried that the entrance to our our practise is shoddy. OK, let's just do one thing.

Let's put a plot, a plant pot in there and, and, and, and let's get some new carpeting, right, done. You know, just tiny things. And then as a practise we commit to just taking carrying out the five actions, and then we send an email out to others to say this is what we're going to do.

And if we are still over worrying, we apply the leads on a stream to learn how to let go of the worrying. And then at the next practise meeting, someone takes responsibility to say, have we actually Done 5 very simple, made 5 very simple shifts or changes that we highlighted at the last practise meeting. Now I use this mainly with GPs, but the GPs absolutely love this one, and you guys are so similar to GP practises.

So, so similar in temperament and the way you run, so I'm hoping you'll find that might be something that people will consider perhaps doing. And that's also. And the last thing that I wanted to share with you.

Tonight is there's a wonderful free resource that we could get every member of our practise to attach to their phones and it's called mood tools and it's free and it's a really, really good well-being aid, mental health aid. It even includes a safety plan for those people that aren't in such a great place, and we will be covering. Suicidality, I think next week.

So it gives you an activity scheduling. It helps you think more clearly, and the tool contains about 5 or 6 really lovely meditations and 52 or 3 relaxation strategies and about 10 fascinating TED Talks very much linked to well-being and mental health. That kind of brings us towards the end of our first session, and I hope this has given us all plenty of food for thought.

I've been really buoyed up by just how sort of ready you guys are just to really kind of become interact and let me know. Will you please all have a think about whether You think I need to cover anything else other than session 1, the emotional health check and looking after the well-being of our colleagues and self. Session 2, how we identify and understand more about depression and anxiety.

Quite deliberately as opposed to the . Mental health first aid. I'm not going into and not explore choosing to explore substance abuse and psychosis because my feeling is, is that if we find, if we suspect substance abuse or we even have a worry about If we even have a worry about what one of our colleagues might be psychotic, the next step is always straight to the GP, and I just think that I wouldn't want to compliment that.

So thank you, Jane. She's saying this is really useful. Emily said that pets count as people.

Well they do in my world. And Dawn has said, if you, if there is anything that you want me to do differently, she's given the email that she's given the email for Dawn at the webinar vet. Please, please let me know if there's because this course is not set in stone, you know, it really isn't.

So That just brings me to say, thank you all so much for attending tonight. I really look forward, I really enjoyed tonight. Done my wellbeing, no end of good.

So, oh, I've gone on to session two. Thank you all so much. If there's anything that I could have done better or differently tonight, I'm aware I kind of had to nip through the We web sort of seven areas, but they are all in the booklet that will be sent out to you, and I'm happy to go over them again next week if people feel the need.

So, thank you all so much for tonight and, . I'm glad that was helpful. Thank you, Victoria.

Owen Howard's already put up the, yoga and exercise session for vets. Oh, thank you so much, Howard. .

So well done, everybody. I think this could be a real shift for the veterinary profession, you know. I know it sounds slightly full of hyper hyperbole, but I really do believe that we having a mental health champion in every vet practise would make such a difference, and I think this might be the way to achieve that.

So there you go, a bit of hyperbole to finish with, but thank you all so much for attending and Good night and thank you massively to Dawn for helping us out tonight because without Dawn, we couldn't do any of this, and the webinar there are fantastic at this stuff. So thank you, Dawn as well. And good night to you all and see you next week.