2. Executive summary
In November 2019, ACEVO and Mental Health First Aid England launched a project exploring how voluntary sector CEOs can support greater workforce wellbeing. The conversation developed from one focused on workforce wellbeing to one which explored the bigger picture of charity sector mental health, and the responsibility of boards to ensure leaders can support themselves in order to support others.
Working in the voluntary sector can be enormously demanding and requires deep resilience; for all sorts of reasons, the work can be emotional and distressing. And yet it is a huge privilege to serve causes and communities and witness the passion, dedication and skills within charity teams. To ensure all staff, volunteers and leaders get the support they deserve, charity CEOs should recognise how they can use their power to shift working cultures and support greater workforce wellbeing – as well as boards taking responsibility for ensuring leaders can access support networks for themselves. Now more than ever, leaders need to pay close attention to their own mental health if they are to thrive in the charity sector environment and model safe behaviours.
The group’s main findings can be split into these key themes:
What makes it tough: the vulnerability of charity staff
Working in the voluntary sector can be very tough. Many staff face acute need on the frontline, support people in deep struggle and hardship and persist relentlessly with entrenched issues. Often, their commitment comes from lived experience of or a personal connection to an issue, and/or a profound sense of social justice, which can make their day-to-day work emotional, triggering or distressing. With the need to focus on frontline delivery and with resources so pressed, it is all too easy for the mental health of staff, volunteers and leaders to become secondary.
The impact on leaders
Leaders in the voluntary sector must balance the need for authentic honesty with taking very difficult organisational decisions that can have an impact on people’s lives. Holding responsibility for workforce wellbeing, and the desire to compensate for the challenges of working in the sector, can be draining for CEOs. The scale of the challenges can feel overwhelming, and it is easy for leaders to feel they are ‘not coping’, that they ‘should be stronger’ and that everyone else is managing better than they are.
When the ground shifts
The operating environment for charities has suddenly changed. Many teams and communities are experiencing deep sadness, loss, isolation and fear as they witness growing need and falling income as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted that racialised and minoritized people within the charity sector have experienced serious harm for years which has not been addressed.
Times of crisis bring issues that have existed for decades in the sector into sharper focus. There is an opportunity as the sector builds back to assess how to make it safer for everyone.
Governance and strategy
Charities have never been more needed. There has never been more to do. The sector will not be able to meet these challenges unless the mental health of staff and leadership is prioritised. Boards play an important role in highlighting mental health as an organisational priority if organisations are to do their best work, ensuring that leaders know they are not alone by giving them the permission they need to reach out and share the load.
We hope this report will help leaders to understand their role in using their power to create healthier, safer cultures in organisations and to feel that they are not alone in the challenges that they face. As ever, talking openly and candidly about mental health is vital for all staff and volunteers, and we hope this report plays a useful role in those important conversations.
