As the old Chinese proverb tells us, every long journey begins with a single step but when that first step requires asking for help it can sometimes be a hard one to take.
Sarah Hanney, an employee of CASE UK (part of The BUSY Group) has worked for years in the field of mental health and understands how hard it can be for someone who is struggling with their mental health to initiate asking for help. With her extended experience, Sarah is passionate about building bridges that make it possible for people to reach out for the required support to begin their journeys of recovery.
Sarah’s role takes her out into the working communities of South Wales to build business partnerships for positive mental health in the workplace. Part of Sarah’s role with the employers she engages with is to encourage referrals for the Able Futures, In-Work and Out of Work Services that CASE-UK deliver across Wales and Southwest England. Alongside this is the work to assist organisations to grow their own capacity, establishing wellbeing for their workforce, ensuring employees who are struggling or in distress feel able to reach out and ask for help.
This capacity-building work, which is funded by the Welsh Government, includes the training of employee ‘Wellbeing Champions’, the delivery of workshops on a range of wellbeing and mental health subjects, and applied suicide prevention training under the ASIST training program. Participants are given the confidence to open up conversations at work about mental health and provide suicide first aid interventions – a programme that Sarah herself helps to deliver.
CASE-UK’s philosophy is that no-one is invincible, and every person is likely to experience tough times in our lives when we need support.
This hit home for Sarah personally when she was struggling with the news that her best friend had been diagnosed with cancer. In asking what she could do to help, Sarah’s friend wickedly suggested that Sarah could sign up for the Gower Peninsula Ultra Challenge, a distance hiking challenge that raises money for children with cancer. The suggestion was made tongue in cheek and both women knew it.
“I despise walking!” Sarah freely admits, “Even when I’m going down to the shops I’ll always drive.”
Sarah wasn’t even sure what an Ultra Challenge was, but she felt the need to do something practical to empathise with the struggle her friend was going through. After some research, and to her own surprise, she signed up for the challenge. Several weeks later, Sarah turned up on the start line underprepared and overpacked. What followed was nine and a half hours of hiking across the limestone cliffs, ridges and wild moors of the Gower Peninsula’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – and on a baking hot day! It was, says Sarah, one of the hardest things she’s ever done both physically and emotionally.
At both official rest stops during the hike, Sarah considered giving up. What helped was being surrounded by the euphoric atmosphere on the day, with people of all ages, shapes and sizes drawn together for a common cause, taking part in the gruelling event for reasons that were individually personal to them. What finally encouraged her to carry on was confiding to other participants how hard she was finding the challenge. It was the conversations that followed and people’s words of understanding and support that kept Sarah going. Until she proudly completed her gruelling 35km trek.
As Sarah collected her tee shirt and medal at the finish line, an Alanis Morissette song, One Hand in my Pocket, was playing over the event’s PA system. Sadly, not long before the Challenge, Sarah’s friend had passed away and the song had been her friend’s funeral song. For Sarah it felt like a beautiful private moment and validation that she had completed the trek – thanks to the words of support from others when she’d wanted to give up, providing her the courage to persevere in completing and honouring her friend.
The passing of Sarah’s best friend has, if anything, given even more impetus to Sarah’s work, building the networks of support that will help other people through their own tough times. As Sarah herself can testify, a first small step can be the start of a remarkable journey, made possible with the support of others along the way.
Sarah Hanney, an employee of Case UK (part of The BUSY Group), recently completed the Gower Peninsula Ultra Challenge to honour her best friend.