What can we do to address mental health issues in the hospitality industry?

Tanwen Dawn-Hiscox

Deputy Editor

What can we do to address mental health issues in the hospitality industry?

Non-profit social enterprise The Burnt Chef Project, whose aim is to stir up a conversation about mental health issues in the hospitality industry, needs your help to complete an up to date survey.

Kris Hall, who founded the initiative last year, has since hosted a series of talks and interactions with individuals on mental health awareness, as well as a photography project involving people from the industry, to show that one can't know what lies beneath the surface of someone's mind.

To complete the survey - click here

The Burnt Chef Project also provides mental health and mental health first aid training, in conjunction with organisations such as Mind and MHFA England.

The initiative has seen widespread support from within the industry, but in order to ascertain where to focus its resources, has created an online survey, asking questions about hospitality professionals' mental health and how they feel that relates to their working conditions, as well as where (and whether or not) they might look to for help.

The purpose of this survey, Kris explained "is to utilise the current climate and the downtime that our shared network is experiencing to 'check in' with those that daily work on the front line and establish the level of both mental health knowledge and first hand experience of mental health issues as a result of working within this trade.

"The results aim to show up-to-date stats on the impacts of mental health in the 3rd largest sector in the UK and give tangible data to the project to enable me to focus the next stage of my resources and time in the right area."

Any and all are invited to participate, irrespective of any current or past mental health challenges, as this, he hopes, will give a fair representation of the industry as it stands.

The survey takes just a few minutes to fill in, and will hopefully lead to more conversations about mental health issues in the industry as well as to more professionals getting the help they need to address their own problems.

Aiming to get enough answers in by 27th April, Kris will then produce a report and decide on the next steps for The Burnt Chef Project.

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