In addition to marking the spring season, May is Mental Health Awareness Month—a month dedicated to awareness, education and advocacy around mental health. Each year, millions of Americans face the reality of living with a mental illness and the stigma that comes with it. As we collectively work to change that stigma, it’s also important that we take a moment to pause and check in with ourselves, our loved ones and our colleagues. How are you doing, really?
Now is also an opportune time to celebrate the progress we’ve made since Mental Health Awareness Month began in 1949. The month was commemorated by what is now known as the Mental Health America (MHA), an organization founded by Clifford Whittingham Beers. Beers was one of five children in his family to suffer from mental illness and it was while receiving medical treatment for his distress that he discovered the mental health field had a poor reputation for malpractice and bias.
As a result, Beers made it his personal mission to ensure mental health patients received the right care and didn’t feel alone in their fight against mental illness. He went on to author best-selling novel, “A Mind that Found Itself,” and opened the first outpatient clinic for mental health patients in the U.S. He later launched Mental Health Week (which eventually became Mental Health Month) to educate Americans about mental illness and health.
In recognition of Mental Health Month, we at RSM will be providing a safe place for conversations and support and encouraging our people to prioritize their mental wellbeing, knowing the support of the firm is behind them. Here are a just a few ways we’re doing that:
- We provide a ‘playbook’ to promote and maintain the importance mental health and wellbeing of our people, and we empower our leaders to have conversations about mental health topics to help our people navigate the resources available to them.
- We encourage all of our people to take responsibility for their own mental health and wellbeing, knowing the support of the firm is behind them.
- Our Abilities employee network group (ENG) proudly works with Active Minds, a nonprofit dedicated to raising mental health awareness.
- We offer benefits that include digital resources, leader training, one-on-one and group sessions that provide support around healing and mental health.
- Our COO Bill Gorman recently talked with PGA TOUR Professional and Team RSM Member, Chris Kirk, about the mental health and addiction challenges Chris has faced, and how he has overcome them. We’ll share the entire video with our people and others via our website and our YouTube channel, and will be sharing brief video “snippets” focusing on various aspects of Chris’s story via our social media channels.
At RSM, we understand the importance of good mental health and wellbeing of our people and, ultimately, the success of our firm and our clients. As the national leader of RSM’s Abilities ENG, I invite you to join our members and the rest of our 13,000 people across the U.S. and in Canada in recognizing the importance of mental health and working together to destigmatize mental illness so that everyone is comfortable getting the support they need to overcome any challenges they might face.
Ayana Martinez, Principal and National Abilities Employee Network Group Leader
RSM is committed to inclusion, and we value perspectives, journeys, milestones and progress that enrich us all.
