Absolute Radio presenters open up about anxiety, for Mental Health Awareness Week
To mark Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, Absolute Radio is broadcasting two very special programmes around this year’s theme of anxiety, and they've shared preview copies of the programmes with Radio Academy Members.
Hosted by Claire Sturgess and Sophie K, the programmes feature members of the on-air Absolute Radio family alongside Wendy Robinson from CALM, talking about their own mental health journeys and experiences with anxiety. The Time To Listen specials are part of Absolute Radio's Mental Health Awareness Week coverage, which has now won Gold twice at The ARIAS, including at this year's ceremony.
Colleagues are invited to listen to the programmes and reflect on their own sources of anxiety within their world of work. The Radio Academy is currently considering how it can address the mental health needs of the industry through events and discussions, and would like to hear the experiences of colleagues to help structure that work. Colleagues are invited to share their stories - confidentially if they wish - using the form below.
Trigger warning: the programmes contain conversation about mental health, grief, anxiety and depression, and suicide is mentioned. If you need support in these areas, you might like to see the list of resources on the Absolute Radio website.
For Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, The Radio Academy wants to learn how it can support colleagues in the industry, with a focus on the campaign's theme of Anxiety. We need your input to tailor our work to the issues you're facing in your careers today.
Radio and Audio is the home of some of the most passionate and driven professionals in the creative sector. Anxiety is a normal emotion in all of us - we have all, at some point or other, felt anxious in our work - whether that's the pressure to deliver day-in day-out, our career prospects, our work-life balance, our working relationships, or anything else.
In the week beginning 15 May, we want to encourage colleagues to open up about the areas of anxiety people in the radio and audio industry are experiencing. We hope to use that information to arrange support sessions with mental health professionals and other experts to offer advice, and we hope people will be willing to share their stories to support colleagues too.
If you're experiencing anxiety with your work, or you've experienced it recently, we'd really appreciate hearing your story. What is happening with you, and what sort of support might you benefit from? Or, what has happened, how did you handle it, and what support did you get?
You can send this to us completely anonymously – but, if you want to give us your name and email, we could get in touch and ask you to participate in future support sessions. Your story could be as short as a sentence, or as long as an essay - whatever you want to tell us will help us shape the sessions to be meaningful, and will help support other people who have shared experiences.
The Mental Health Foundation’s aim for Mental Health Awareness Week is to “increase people's awareness and understanding of anxiety by providing information on the things that can help prevent it from becoming a problem”. We hope that these virtual support sessions can make a meaningful contribution to this aim, and we’d love your input to make that happen.