Manah Wellness Hits Milestone with 1,500 Trained Wellbeing Champions

Manah Wellness, a leading provider of employee mental wellbeing services, today announced a new milestone in creating Wellbeing Champions at workplaces. Manah has trained one of the largest pools of Wellbeing Champions globally, having skilled more than 1,500 of the workforce at several workplaces.

Mental Wellbeing Champions are volunteer staff in an organization who are skilled on a range of areas to enable emotionally vulnerable co-workers to feel safe and encourage them to reach out for help. These Champions are trained to detect early signs of emotional distress, offer peer-to-peer support, remove the stigma of mental health and nurture a culture of mental wellbeing among the co-workers.

“The presence of Wellbeing Champions at a workplace is key to employees making right decisions on matters of mental health and wellbeing. These Champions not only make their co-workers feel safe in reaching out for help but also are trained to advocate the cause of mental wellbeing among other stakeholders in the organization, enabling the creation of an inclusive and safe work environment,” said Manah Wellness Co-founder and CEO Dr Ashwin Naik. “Wellbeing Champions trained by Manah Wellness today play these crucial roles in dozens of companies the world over. Manah has set an aggressive target of training more than 3,000 Wellbeing Champions during this year.”

The presence of a peer-to-peer support is a critical link between an emotionally distress situation experienced by an employee and their decision to reach out to a mental health professional. Wellbeing Champions offer this critical link, significantly improving the efficiency of an organization’s employee mental wellbeing program.

“The Wellbeing Champions are trained by Manah Wellness psychologists on four areas, namely distress, disorder, crisis and development. Through learning, evaluation and certification, these Champions get skilled on empathy, keen observation, early identification of signs of emotional distress, holding non-judgemental conversations, crisis management, resourcefulness and self-care,” explained Manah Wellness Co-founder and COO Ritika Arora.

Before they participate in the training program, the Champions undergo mental health self-assessment and a series of emotional health coaching sessions with Manah Wellness psychologists, which prepare them for their role as Wellbeing Champions. Post the training program, the Champions are ensured continuous learning through weekly interactions, access to resources, meet-ups and regular micro skilling workshops.