1. Foreword

One of the joys of the social sector is the passion and commitment of the people who work in it. Often, in part because that passion and commitment is rooted in personal experiences of the issues we are all trying to address, we can find ourselves fragile and vulnerable to poor mental health as a direct result of our work.

As sector leaders, we have an important role to play in ensuring workplaces are happy and healthy, our teams thrive, and our people are able to bring their whole selves to work. But we can only do that effectively if we ourselves are able to cope.

The challenges of being a CEO in the social sector also make it exciting and rewarding, but the difficulties are real and the impact on our lives considerable. We have to balance highly-prized authenticity and openness with reassuring competence and control even during the darkest times.

In drawing together a group of CEOs to discuss the mental health of the workforce, ACEVO and MHFAE helped us open a rich and rewarding stream of honest reflection. From these emerged some themes that we present here in the hope they will be helpful to other CEOs thinking about their wellbeing and that of their teams.

Jules Hillier, chair of the ACEVO and MHFA England working group