Annemarie Lewis Thomas BA(Hons), MSc, FRSA
Consultancy Work
In 2016, the MTA initiated the theatre industry's #time4change mental health charter, an award-winning initiative widely accepted to be a major contributor to the start of the conversation around mental health in the arts.
However, this wasn't the first ground-breaking move by The MTA, as from the moment it opened in 2009 it became the UK's first vocational college to have a whole school policy around mental health.
In 2019 I gave a keynote speech at Equity's first ArtsMind Symposium to discuss how these changes had impacted the industry, the fight that I'd had to implement them, and finished with a call to action for the industry to take a more proactive approach to mental health.
Since #time4change, I've written several articles for industry publications on Mental Health and have been a guest on several prominent podcasts both within the theatre industry and outside of it, discussing my work as an advocate for better mental health in education.
More recently, I've been involved with a local primary school, successfully helping them transition towards a whole-school policy on mental health.
All of this was achieved through experiential learning having worked in further and higher education for decades. Since The MTA closed in 2022, and having since qualified with both a Level 4 diploma in advanced counselling and more recently an MSc in Psychology, Mental Health and Wellbeing, I am now opening up a consultancy service to help other organisations identify how they could take a more proactive approach to mental health.
Of course, it's not just colleges that need to think about mental health, all of this applies to every business. A healthy workforce is a more productive workforce, and in an age where people are prioritising their wellbeing you're more likely to attract the right people to work for you if, as part of your package, you're offering a supportive, proactive environment, which prioritises welfare without sacrificing productivity. In fact, if you get it right. . . you've hit the jackpot as you'll have a happy workforce working with you, not just for you. The unprecedented results that The MTA achieved in terms of graduate success, staff retention, supportive environment were all down to making mental health and wellbeing a core asset, as opposed to an add-on.
So whether you're looking for a trouble-shooter, or whether you're looking to buy-in services for your business to ensure that sufficient support is in place - drop me a line and let's start the conversation.