25 years of making life work with mental illness

Guildford-based Oakleaf has been helping the community to manage its mental ill-health since 1995, and it is proud to announce that this year marks its 25th anniversary as a charity. Oakleaf became a registered charity on September 22nd 1997, having started with just 40 clients. It now supports over 800 people each year.

Oakleaf works with adults aged 16-67 who are struggling with their mental health. It delivers work-related training courses, which enable clients to gain qualifi cations and practical experience. In addition, it provides employment support, one-to-one emotional support, counselling services and a wide variety of wellbeing activities both online and in-person including confi dence building, badminton, tai chi, watercolour art, football, youth groups, and much more.

Where Oakleaf differs from other mental health charities is that it also acts as a social enterprise, providing services and products to the public; the funds of which are fed straight back to the charity.

It’s no surprise that in a world where people’s jobs account for most of their time, our mental health affects our working lives just as our profession can impact our mental health. There’s a lot of overlap between these two aspects of our lives.

For this reason, Oakleaf launched the Mental Health Leaders Network (MHLN) at the end of 2021, bringing together a wide variety of Surrey businesses committed to addressing workplace mental wellbeing. The network provides events, training and support around workplace, mental health for member businesses and their staff – and all membership fees go towards funding Oakleaf’s charitable activities.

“We are incredibly proud to be founding members of the Mental Health Leaders Network. Mental health is something that affects us all and it’s our duty, as business leaders, to make our team’s wellbeing a priority.” – Suzanne, Marketing Manager at projectfi ve

Oakleaf’s Head of Partnerships and Engagement, Jen Clay has recently released a brand new podcast: ‘Oakleaf at Work: Exploring Mental Health in the Workplace’ where she speaks with guests from the MHLN as well as experts in the fi eld to discuss a wide range of topics within workplace mental health and wellbeing.

Oakleaf also continues to provide Mental Health First Aid training for businesses, an internationally recognised training course which teaches people to spot the symptoms of mental health issues, offer initial help and guide a person towards support.

❛❛ “I had only just started with Oakleaf when the lockdown commenced, so as you can imagine it left me stranded and very isolated. I am doing a range of different courses through Oakleaf, and I am thankful for all their time, kindness, help and support. These classes have given me a reason to get out of bed and have provided me with a real drive and daily structure.” ❜❜ John, Oakleaf client