It is that time of the year when we as an organization bring awareness to Mental Health. This year’s theme is Resiliency and Community Healing.

Every year BRIDGES participates in celebrating the annual “Get Your Green On” campaign. The Get Your Green On campaign aims to raise awareness by creating visible support and fostering safe spaces to talk openly about mental health and trauma. To show our support, I am inviting you to participate on the “Get Your Green On,” and wear green on Thursday, May 18, 2023. Mental Health Awareness Month was established in 1949 to increase awareness of the importance of mental health and wellness in Americans’ lives and to celebrate recovery from mental illness.

Mental Health is one of those topics that is being spoken about a lot more within recent times more specifically, in the workplace. So what is mental health really?

According to the WHO, mental health is the foundation for the wellbeing and effective functioning of individuals. On the other hand, occupational health is the maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social wellbeing of workers in all occupations. In simple terms, good occupational health = good mental health. A poor mental health really can be detrimental to job performance and productivity which can ultimately end in dissatisfaction within the workplace and work environment and in severe cases – unemployment. Therefore, it is necessary to acknowledge and balance mental health within the workplace and prioritize it within the Occupational Health standards of the company or organization.