Life as a Frontline Worker in Mental Health Care

Mental health is a minefield; you spend time supporting your patients’ mental wellbeing and you learn how to become an expert in hiding yours.

I am a mental health and complex needs worker for a charity. In the past I worked as a senior mental health support worker in a forensic medium secure mental health hospital. I worked on both Personality Disorder and mental health wards. Most of the patients I come across stuck on the wards had been through the criminal justice system after being convicted of various criminal incidents connected with their mental health problems. I’ve been working in this environment in the community and clinical setting for 11 years.

There is one story that stands out.

‘On a ward anything can be a clue to anything, stress, depression, illness..’

I was coming towards the end of a 12 hours’ shift in a medium-secure mental health hospital unit I was working on a few years ago. A ward manager was sitting in the staff office. He looked distracted and seemed reluctant to be back on the busy ward. I noticed that he was writing some notes while I kept an eye on the communal area of the ward, making sure both patients and staff were safe. I knocked on the door and mentioned that it was time for our shift hand over. The manager tore-up the piece of paper he was writing on and threw it into the bin. I noticed a drawing, I didn’t know what. On a ward anything can be a clue to anything, stress, depression, illness, aggression, tiredness, sadness, resentment, bullying, racism, a hard life, an outside, anger, joy, wish, workload sedation, a cry for help and most importantly intent (self-harm, suicidal, harm/hurt others…)

I went to the bin and asked if he wouldn’t mind me taking out the piece of paper he’d thrown away. I picked it up and had a glance, I noticed the sadness in it. I put the paper in my draw. Two days later, I took it home but it was too scruffy that I couldn’t see its contents properly. It looked like someone — a man — with tears in their eyes. But who was crying? Why were they crying? What was he trying to say? Is it urgent? The man in the picture looked smartly dressed and made me think of this ward manager who is often the most smartly dressed person in that hospital.

I started greeting him every morning subtly checking in on him to see if he was ok. It was so hard to pick-up anything significant in relation to the picture. He was always so positive. ‘I am absolutely great by grace of God! I am so happy. Thank you so much for calling brother Maron! We are winner and we must win. No ground for failure…’even the most challenging unsettled patients would just calm down and become cheerful with him.

I’d kept the picture in the middle of a big book. In this time, I scanned the picture he drew and brought it back to life. The more I looked at it the more I suspected something was wrong and I needed to find out what. I visited him out of work and offered to teach him how to make a DVD. I had my camera and took some shots of him singing. He suddenly became emotional and quiet. When we started editing, I told him that he can put cut-out pictures on the timeline; he quickly went into his pen drive full with pictures of friends, family and church. We reached a few photos that he looked at thoughtfully and said ‘these are the ones I want’. I asked who the man on photo was. He replied ‘My old man, he passed away a few months ago.’ It was his beloved dad! Before I could express my condolences, he told me where he lived and how close they were and how far he was when this happened. Swiftly he was in the Bible verses to hide a natural soft side of all humans — sadness of loss. Not only a loss, his powerlessness and impossibility to be with him when he died.

As frontline workers, we need to ensure that we make time to support our colleagues, recognise when they might need a helping hand. I told him that finally I understood who this man in the picture was but I still cannot understand why he was hiding what happened.

Over the last few months I have been part of the systems changers programme with Lankelly Chase. Through the programme I have learnt how to use different lenses to forensically look at myself and most importantly the environment I am working in.

It is vital to support staff working in this field because there is a high risk of exposure to depression and many other complex mental health issues. When you have empathy, you develop a feeling that enables you to support the patient but we also need to make sure we look out for each other

Maron Ehata is a Multiple Needs caseworker working for the charity Elmore Community Services in Oxfordshire. The charity supports clients who struggle to access services. Maron participated in the Lankelly Chase Systems Changers programme in 2016. The programme aimed to take frontline workers on a six month journey to gain a much broader and deeper understanding of the systems in which they work and to explore how they can contribute to systemic change.