How to Measure the Success of Your Mental Health Initiatives

Capture the essence hitting the bull’s-eye. Decoding further the dynamics of running and measuring the success parameters of any Mental Health Initiative. Read on to know more…

Lately, mental health has become one of the most talked about and extremely crucial discussions happening across the globe, along with climate change and sustainability. More and more companies and individuals are working towards making mental health accessible to each and every individual wanting to cure his/ her mental health and emotional wellness.

With numerous initiatives happening everywhere, like a wave of transformation, it is imperative to map the effectiveness of every communication and overall ROI for such initiatives. Such mapping will not only help with communicating to the audience in a much more effective format but also with the permutations and combinations of every campaign per market. However, this mapping can be quite challenging.

If you are an entrepreneur, a CSR representative for your company, a community spokesperson, or an individual wanting to make a difference in the mental health space, this blog is definitely for you.

As Elon Musk often has said regarding his business outlook and strategies: “I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.”

Mental Health Initiatives in the Workplace

Below are some of the pointers to help you ease the entire process and be a successful leader in your domain:

The Why of it – The (very) first and basic step to any initiative work, irrespective of the scale, is to figure out the ‘Why’ of it. Once you know why you are doing, what you are doing, things are almost in the correct buckets. Post-mapping the ‘Why’, you can set a goal based on what to do to achieve this ‘Why’. Make sure to give timelines to every work.

Instead, make short-term and long-term goals and set timelines against each of these entries. It will help you prioritise your work accordingly, and you will always know where you stand with respect to deadlines and deliveries.

The How of it – Once, you know why you are starting your initiative and what you would need to achieve your (short-term and long-term) goals. Then comes in the pipeline is – “How will you achieve your targets against set timelines?”

Start by conducting some surveys that will give you feedback and real-time analysis of what is happening around you. Make sure to include questions related to mental health, mental health awareness, support systems, availability of mental health facilities, the effectiveness of programs (if you are designing such programs yourself), what to expect from these programs, the dos and don’ts, and so on.

Make sure you are not doing this to collect any data; the topic is sensitive, and privacy should be of utmost importance. Therefore, ensure that the participation is done anonymously.

Once you are functional, active and running the initiative in full swing, comes the entire process of evaluating the utilisation of the resources. It is like (simultaneously) knowing and evaluating the offerings in order to plan any change if needed. An increase in participation (online or offline, depending on your modules) indicates that your programs are well-received within your target audience, and you can plan for the next step of strategic growth.

However, if the participation is less than anticipated, you need to re-consider the points mentioned above and re-figure the ‘What’ and ‘How’ of your initiative.

Talk to Our Mental Health Experts

A well-planned strategy is only as good as the participation of your target audience. It is the only way to strategically grow and upscale the profits and be the leader of your domain.

Other Strategic Points to Consider:

Mental Health Awareness

Any Mental Health Initiative should also include raising awareness of the same in its Key Plan of Action. How well are you working to raise awareness – within and outside your reach? Make proper plans with touch points (online and offline) to conduct this activity with set timelines and goals.

Why not create Support Groups?

Internationally, support groups work best and usually get 100% participation with utmost trust and confidence. Also, there are several mentorship programs that happen on a 1-to-1 basis to help an individual with love and support for his mental health journey.

Employees Assistance Programs

Also known as EAP, these programs cater to the specific needs of the corporate employees’ mental health and emotional well-being. Targeted issues like sleep disorders, concentration issues, diversity, work-life imbalance stress, dealing with tight deadlines, and the like – can be dealt with whilst you promote your initiative in the corporate industry.

Read more about: Employee Assistance Programs: Everything You Need To Know

Lastly, never miss out on highlighting the testimonials from your customers. Irrespective of the hard work you are putting into your initiative, there’s nothing more encouraging than good PR based on your customers’ experiences and testimonials.

As someone once rightly said, good word-of-mouth is always better than the best of any PR campaign.

The Mental Health industry will grow multi-folds in the coming years.

It is only time to start your initiative and be a part of this transformation.

It is Now or never.