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WellBeing World, the Channel Islands based health and wellbeing business has partnered with Thrive Therapeutic Software in the UK to provide employers and their employees in Jersey and Guernsey with access to the NHS approved Mental Health app, ‘Thrive’. Thrive focuses on the prevention, screening and self-management of common mental health conditions such as stress, anxiety and depression, and uses clinically proven methods, used in real-world therapy, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and mindfulness techniques.
Founder of WellBeing World, Beverley Le Cuirot said: “Thrive is an evidence-based smartphone application providing in-depth tools to detect, prevent and treat mental health conditions. Co-founded by Dr Andres Fonseca in 2012, it uses the latest computerised CBT methods to help people manage specific stressors and retrain unhelpful thoughts. Every Thrive question and feature has been validated by research and is continually developed by experts.”
She added: “I am delighted to have been asked to partner with the team at Thrive Therapeutic Software and to be able to add the Thrive Mental Health app and related services to our portfolio. The app complements perfectly the services already offered through our ‘WellBeing At Work’ platform by a wide range of WellBeing World Member practitioners, including Health and Wellness, Mindfulness, Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Tapping, Health Kinesiology, Stress Management, Resilience, Mediation and Resolution, and more.
“Dr Andres’ professional experience in the mental health sector is extensive and impressive, having worked initially for the NHS, and then for one of the UK’s largest mental health services along with Clinical Director and psychologist Adam Huxley. With an ethos similar to ourselves at WellBeing World, Dr Andres recognised back in 2012 that with a UK population of over 60 million and growing, and knowing that 1 in 4 people will suffer a mental health condition at some point in their lives, it was necessary to look at ways of providing support on a large scale, and with the emphasis on prevention."
Effective employee mental health strategies are becoming one of the greatest assets for employers. According to the Thriving at Work report* published in October 2017, lack of support for employees and their wellbeing was costing UK businesses between £33 and £42 billion each year, with over half of this cost due to the loss of employee productivity due to poor mental health in work.
According to Gov.je, statistics collected in the Island in recent years show that stress related illness is one of the most significant factors associated with absence from work due to ill health. Whilst it is felt there is likely to be considerable under-reporting of work related stress, the latest figures show that stress related illness in Jersey accounts for approximately 9,000 working days lost annually, with an average of approximately 44 days per claimant. This highlights the importance of prevention and intervention in common mental health problems.
Many organisations are becoming more aware of the benefits of supporting the health and wellbeing of their employees and are implementing different strategies to help support good mental health. In the UK, the NHS approved Thrive Mental Health app is one of them, focusing on the prevention, screening and self-management of common mental health conditions such as stress, anxiety and depression.
Through encouraging support-seeking behaviour, it allows for the prevention of problems before they become severe, and offers life coaching and counselling, where required. The service is entirely confidential for employees, supports Mental Health First Aiders, and provides anonymised quarterly reports to employers to highlight the top five stressors within the organisation.
Dr Andres commented: “We work all over the world, and we’re delighted to announce our partnership with WellBeing World to bring the Thrive app to businesses and their employees in the Channel Islands. We share the same vision for better workplaces where employees can have access to efficient tools to self-manage their health and wellbeing in a private, secure and efficient way; where individuals will be empowered by learning how to manage their emotions and change the way they react to challenges in life. We cannot eliminate the problems and challenges but we can help employees learn new ways of coping and assist them in managing how they to react to problems, whether these are work, relationships, family or health related. We are really excited to start working with Beverley and her team at WellBeing World because when people with the same goal collaborate better things can happen. I look forward to seeing our impact in the Channel Islands.”
The partnership between Thrive and WellBeing World will provide access to Channel Islands companies enabling them to receive the full range of preventive, diagnostic, treatment and maintenance options that a healthy workforce requires.
