A million reasons…
It’s time for honest conversations about
Mental Health Resilience
Most of us don’t think twice about going to the doctor for regular tests and checkups on everything from temperature and blood to mammograms and prostate checks. But when is the last time you had a mental health checkup? Probably never.
We often only seek help with our mental health when we’re already in crisis. Resiliency is our ability to positively adapt to challenges and recover from setbacks and the ups and downs of life. Building resilience is important to maintaining good mental health and provides us with the skills and strength not only to endure in difficult times and recover, but also to grow and prosper.
So what if you had a tool that allowed you to check your mental health regularly to spot early warning signs, avoid prolonged suffering and treatment and increase your mental resilience? That’s what our One Million Lives campaign is all about, and I’m proud to be its champion.
I’m really impressed by our progress on Jacobs’ mental health journey from 2015 to today. The organization has provided tremendous support to our Mental Health Matters program, which now has around 2,200 mental health champions, including our CEO and Executive Leadership Team — it’s incredible!
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we decided to do more to support our champions and colleagues by hosting weekly mental health resilience video calls, which have dealt with topics such as navigating the challenges of lockdown, how to build resilience and how to deal with grief. On a good day, we have 4,500 people attend — it’s been a phenomenal success and so much appreciated by our staff.
However, insights gained from the Mental Health Matters program, as well as feedback from mental health champions, employee surveys and conversations with mental health experts, all highlighted the need for more proactive and preventative solutions. So I worked with some colleagues to leverage Jacobs’ digital and global connectivity and accessed renowned psychologist Peta Slocombe’s deep domain expertise to develop the One Million Lives check-in tool.
One Million Lives
One Million Lives is a complimentary campaign accessible to everyone — no matterwhere they live, who they are or what organization they work for. Many people don’t have access to corporate resources or employee assistance programs, so we wanted to develop a tool to detect early signs of mental distress and offer proactive strategies, such as sleep, exercise and social media behaviors. Our goal? To break down the barriers that hinder honest conversations about mental health and encourage an open culture of support. We also sought to leverage our extensive networks and create a ripple effect around the globe.
After a very positive pilot test, where we had tremendous responses (“this check-in saved my life” and “after doing the check-in, I made an appointment to see my doctor”) I thought, why can’t we create a tool that reaches more people? Why not help our families, our clients and contractors and communities…why not help everyone?
The web-based One Million Lives check-in app was developed in partnership with RediApps and launched in December 2020.
To complement the app, there’s a website with additional valuable resources to enable you to engage with the One Million Lives campaign and help you with your mental health growth.
By inviting people to routinely check in to see how they are doing and encourage their own networks to do the same, we hope more people will become more aware of their state of mental health.
"We wanted something that focused on being preventative. To enable people to take control themselves. I felt that was missing from my experiences of different programs that we had taken part with or knew about around the world. The ones that existed were good but tended to be reactive, and I always felt there was something missing."
– Paul Hendry, Vice President Health, Safety and Environment
How Does It Work?
The process asks participants to complete a check-in via a web-based app, which questions them about signs of psychological distress to shed light on how they are currently coping, to assess early indicators of mental health challenges and importantly, to get support much earlier.
The check-in tool measures three factors
- Psychological distress — The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) is one of the most used assessments administered by doctors and health professionals. It measures non-specific psychological distress on the anxiety-depression spectrum, using questions that gauge a person’s level of nervousness, agitation, psychological fatigue and depression.
- Early warning signs or risk factors, such as excessive sleep or alcohol use, for example.
- Protective or proactive factors, such as social media use and perfectionism, among others.
The tool has stringent data protection and anonymity requirements that ensure confidentiality. All data are aggregated with no personally identifying information.
After the 75 questions are measured, participants get a detailed report with 7 measurements, including coping mechanisms, resilience and social networks. But I want to be clear — we are not doctors, and the app in no way diagnoses mental health issues — the goal is to provide wider visibility on mental health in general and give you a tool to see how you are doing and whether you might want to consider getting additional support from your own doctor.
What Results Are We Seeing?
One Million Lives is still in its infancy; however, the data collected to date — 10,000 check-ins as of March 1, 2021 — is already helping us gain insights into the mental wellbeing of our employees and is helping us to make informed, data-driven decisions in response. When respondents sign up, they are asked to state whether they work for Jacobs or another organization.
One Million Lives is not about an app and not about a website — it’s about having honest conversations. To spread the word, we leveraged our networks, forming partnerships with other organizations who, like Jacobs, believe that this campaign has the potential to transform our collective approach to mental health. To date, we’re supported by Northern Star Resources Ltd, HSE Global Series, Safer Highways UK, Construction Industry Federation, Livingstone Football Club and the Lighthouse Club, with more organizations joining every day.
If you’ve ever wanted to help reduce the stigma of mental health issues, even if you feel well, please head to https://www.oml.world/.
- Grab a coffee, go to the website and take 5 minutes to complete your own free mental health profile.
- Follow your own recommendations and help break the stigma by talking about your results.
- Tag and share with family and friends that you are helping touch One Million Lives.
If there was ever a problem worth coming together for, and harnessing our networks and technology for, it’s this one. The solution is in our hands, and the time is now. •
Sean’s Story
How I got help during the pandemic
My name is Sean Perry. I’m 43, married with two gorgeous daughters, ages 10 and 6. I joined Jacobs in 2018 as a Transport Planner in the Chelmsford (UK) office; my previous background was in Local Authority roles spanning nearly 20 years. This is my first role in the private sector, and I’ve found the transition quite challenging, highlighting some underlying confidence and anxiety issues that affected my perceived ability to undertake the role.
Since the pandemic lockdowns commenced in March 2020, I’ve been solely working at home and found that my perceived issues of confidence have been magnified, mainly because I’m not physically with my colleagues (something I find incredibly valuable in helping me overcome these issues). This has resulted in feeling exhausted, unconfident and overly emotional. At first, I put the feelings down to the circumstances and thought it was normal; however, when I took the One Million Lives check-in in October 2020, it showed my overall mental health being scored as Poor.
It was this result that prompted me to act. I have since spoken with my doctor who signed me off work for 3 weeks and put me on a course of treatment, which is really helping. I am now feeling more confident in my abilities and starting to feel like my old self. This journey has also enabled me to talk more openly about what I have faced, which helps enormously. The support I have received from Jacobs has been fantastic throughout — I have felt looked-after and ultimately cared for. Without One Million Lives, I am not sure that I would have realized there was an issue early on and been able to get to the necessary support before it became a much bigger problem. I would certainly recommend using One Million Lives, as it has some great resources on how to remain positive and healthy during these really challenging times.