26 October

First ever This is Me Summit

This year The Lord Mayor’s Appeal hosted its first ever This is Me summit which took place virtually at the end of October. 

The summit helped to celebrate five years of our pioneering mental health programme This is Me which currently has over 1,200 organisations from across the UK and internationally taking part.

Bringing together multi-sector organisations from across the globe, attendees got the chance to take part in a series of sessions and workshops over the day, with the added benefit that they could create their own unique agenda, choosing which sessions best suited their needs to develop their understanding of This is Me .

The event was chaired by Barbara Harvey, a researcher, campaigner, and speaker on all aspects of workplace culture, belonging and equality. With a wealth of experience within this area Barbara was a fantastic chair welcoming attendees to the summit and outlining what they could expect from the day as well as hosting the hugely insightful panel session ‘The future of mental health in the workplace’. In her opening statement Barbara encouraged attendees to ‘be inspired to go further and maybe try something new’.

Jo Cole from UBS joined on the day to talk about her own personal experience with mental health, which began 20 years ago when her son showed signs of struggling with his mental health. A huge thank you to Jo who shared openly the journey she and her family went on and spoke to the beneficial impact of engaging in the Green Ribbon Campaign and taking part in the first storytelling video that UBS created

The Lord Mayor Alderman William Russell and Lady Mayoress also joined the Summit with The Lord Mayor talking about the economic and human cost of poor mental health. He asked those joining the summit to ‘give your employees a voice by sharing their powerful stories and show them your commitment to supporting mental health’. T

Barbara Harvey also introduced Sally Evans from PwC at the start of the event who gave an overview of the three tools This is Me is comprised of, the Green Ribbon, This is Me Storytelling and Wellbeing in the Workplace. Sally shared how the three tools are integrated and used within PwC and encouraged all attendees to look at all three tools and how they can be used to complement each other. 

After the initial opening the event then broke out into various networking and panel sessions which offered practical guidance and ideas to support businesses with their This is Me campaigns. Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing some information and some short clips from each of these breakout sessions.

Don’t forget if you are a member of This is Me all the content from the event will be available on our hub when launched.