Spark Foundry to close Melbourne and Sydney offices tomorrow for World Mental Health Day

To mark World Mental Health Day tomorrow, October 10th, Spark Foundry will close its offices nationally and the entire staff will take a day to reflect on their own mental health.

Spark has also asked its staff to donate a minimum of $10 to 1010, the World Mental Health Day charity, which advocates on behalf of a wide range of people working to improve the mental health and wellbeing of all Australians.

In addition, staff have been asked to make a “promise” via the World Mental Health Day website, save it as a jpeg and all promises feature on the World Mental Health Day ‘Promise Wall’ at the Spark’s Sydney and Melbourne offices.

The “Do You See What I See?” #MentalHealthPromise initiative challenges perceptions about mental illness in Australia and encourages everyone to look at mental health in a more positive light, in an effort to reduce stigma and encourage more people to seek the help and support.

Some of the Spark staff promises include, “taking more timeout for myself”, “spend more time fundraising to support our chosen charities”, “listen openly to family members”, “don’t judge or make assumptions”

World Mental Health Day is a day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy and is an initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health to raise public awareness of mental health issues worldwide.

Says Sue Squillace (right), CEO, Spark Foundry: “This is our second year we are proud to support World Mental Health Day. The mental health issues among our youth are becoming very serious. We work in a young, dynamic, fast and sometimes very challenging industry so it’s never been more important for our people to pause and take a day for themselves, to work on their own mental health, whether it’s a walk with friends, an hour of yoga or supporting the various activities that many charities organise on the day.  Our clients have been overwhelmingly supportive again this year as our staff takes a day for themselves.”

This is one of several initiatives Spark has introduced at the agency to care for the wellbeing of its people and others including a yoga ‘Zen Den’, bootcamps, half day monthly Fridays, Red Cross Blood Drives, volunteering staff time for FairShare and the opportunity for mothers and fathers to work from home.

Spark also regularly fundraises and supports the batyr foundation, a mental health organisation created and driven by young people and has run sessions for Spark staff with The Gidget Foundation, which supports the emotional wellbeing of expectant and new parents with perinatal depression and anxiety, raising awareness of this issue for new mums.