Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department has taken to reduce mental health stigma and discrimination as a result of signing up to the Time to Change Pledge.
Answered by Helen Grant - Shadow Solicitor General
· DCMS held a health and wellbeing event which included mental health as a key part of employee wellbeing. To support this, Time To Change representatives attended and ran a stall to raise awareness both of mental health and the stigma surrounding it, and the support available.
· DCMS set up market stalls at the last two 'All staff Away' days, giving a chance to discuss mental health with all staff.
· DCMS arranged an informal 'Time to Talk' tea & cake morning arranged during DCMS inclusion week to encourage all staff to discuss mental health to help reduce the stigma.
· All DCMS staff are invited to the regular meetings that are run by the Mental Health staff network.
· Interesting and informative articles posted on the Mental Health forum, to encourage staff to think about information on mental health that may not be common knowledge.
· DCMS will be taking part the Whitehall event at the end of March 2015 which is organised by 'Time to Change' to encourage all governmental departments to work together to reduce the stigma around Mental Health.
· DCMS have been encouraging all staff to complete the 'Unconscious Bias' e-learning and face to face to session to help identify, challenge, prevent and remove unconscious bias in the workplace.