Mental Health Awareness Week

Posted on 15th May 2023 by Amy Taylor

What is Mental Health Awareness Week?

green text reading May Mental Health Awareness month

It’s a seven-day period organised by The Mental Health Foundation that is intended to raise awareness about how your own mental health can be affected, and to highlight the prevalence of mental health issues across society.

It’s also intended to start conversations about mental health issues and to de-stigmatise the issue as a whole.

For 2023 it runs from the 15^th to 21^st May.

What does the data say?

A recent survey carried out by the Mental Health Foundation indicated that the UK population was “experiencing widespread levels of stress, anxiety and hopelessness in response to financial concerns”, which is probably not overly surprising given the current cost of living crisis.

That survey was carried out in November 2022 and took in the responses of 3000 adults in the UK, which indicated that:

29 % of respondents experience stress;
34% of respondents experience anxiety; and
10% of respondents said they felt hopeless because of financial worries.

However, despite that handy reminder of how common mental health issues can be, the causes of stress are perhaps the most important part of the survey, as they included:

Unable to maintain their standard of living (71%)
Unable to heat their home (66%)
Unable to pay household bills (61%)
Worried about being able to afford food (50% generally, 67% in younger adults)

Other common causes of stress included work (either commitments or risk of losing a job), health (of the respondent or a family member) and existing debts.

These points are important because they are things that pretty much any individual can experience or worry about at any given time, even more so currently in the UK due to the ongoing economic situation.

A woman in a facemask sits on some steps, her head is in her hands and a box sits beside her

Who experiences mental health issues?

Anyone can have problems with their mental health, just as anyone can have problems with their physical health, yet mental health is much less discussed, is often seen as a taboo subject, and, if it is a long-term illness, is frequently filed away with other invisible disabilities in an effort for society at large to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

Which is unfair, really, especially when you look at research by organisations such as the NHS, which shows that around 1 in 6 adults meet the criteria for a common mental disorder.

Or, as paraphrased by the Priory Group, around 1 in 6 people “experience symptoms for common mental health problems… in any given week in the UK.”

Now, granted, that NHS survey is from 2014, reported in 2016, and those numbers will have changed since then, but I cannot believe that those numbers will have decreased considering everything that’s happened since then.

You know… Brexit, Covid, the cost of living crisis to name just three.

Interestingly, according to the government, a new survey of this extent is planned for sometime in 2023, so it will be interesting to see how the numbers have changed over these eventful years when the next report comes out.

A cardboard cut-out of a head surrounded by scrunched up paper in various colours that forms the shape of a speech bubble. Inside the head is an outline of a brain in which are the words Mental Health.

So why don’t people do anything about mental health issues?

A whole heap of reasons, right at the top of which are things like the current increased stress on the NHS and reduced funding for social care systems by the Government (as a general entity, not just the current incumbents of Westminster).

Going back to that NHS survey, despite around 43% of adults thinking that they have had or currently have a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their life, 61% of adults with mental health problems don’t access treatment.

Some of that is lack of access to care, via the NHS or other systems, some of it is down to stigma, and some of it is down to old fashioned things like “I don’t want to be a bother”, or “everyone goes through this”, or “it’ll go away eventually”.

And I mean, even if it does eventually go away like something such as a cold would, firstly you don’t deserve to feel miserable all that time, and secondly, even for a cold you’d reach for the painkillers or the hot lemon, right? So why not look for things to help you when you’re having mental health problems?

And a lot of people do go through mental health issues, it’s true, but here’s an idea: everyone is deserving of help when they’ve got a problem.

scrabble tiles spelling out Mental Health Matters

What can we do about it?

Well, first of all, to pinch a phrase from an old advert, it’s good to talk.

Whether that’s to a professional or to a friend or to a loved one, talking through something can reduce anxiety and give you a new perspective, even if it doesn’t immediately bring about a solution just the knowledge that you’re not alone really does help.

For example, ITV have been running their Britain Get Talking campaign for a little while now in conjunction with Mind and Young Minds charities, which has definitely helped raise awareness of mental health issues for a lot of people.

For some folks, talking to their GP is also a good place to start. Potential issues around even getting an appointment aside, they have access to professional resources that many people don’t, can refer you direct to other services within the NHS, and can provide concise lists of resources that can be tailored by them to your specific needs.

There are multiple charities out there that offer access to resources to help with your mental health – some of these are free of charge but may require self-study, others are paid-for services such as counselling.

You can also access private professional, paid-for therapy and counselling services if that’s something that you think will help you best, and is within your budget, however, that’s really not a point I’m personally able, willing or feel comfortable to advise upon.

What I do feel comfortable doing, and what I’ve done below, is to pull together a list of links and resources for you to access, all neat and tidy and in one place.

All the links open in a new browser window and go direct to the listed resource.

two green charity support ribbons against a green background, one larger than the other, supporting mental health awareness

Links & Resources

General Resources:

The Mental Health Foundation

Information on Mental Health Awareness Week 2023 and it’s core aims is on the MHF Website, and they also have a great Get Help page with links to other resources.

ITV’s Britain Get Talking Campaign

More details can be found on the ITV website.

Mind

Have a lot of information and support on the Mind Website, as well as an infoline number (which is 0300 123 3393)

Young Minds

Similar to Mind but aimed at young people and teens, they also have information for parents, teachers and the like about how to suppport young people with mental health issues on the Young Minds Website.

Anxiety UK

Have helpline services available by phone, text and an online chatbot service, details of which are on the Anxiety UK website.

CALM ( the Campaign Against Living Miserably)

Have a late night helpline and chat bot available 5pm to midnight every day of the year. Can be accessed by phone (0800 585858) and on the CALM website.

Construction Industry Specific Resources:

The Lighthouse Club

This is a construction industry specific charity that provides multiple different types of support for construction workers and their families. They have local clubs across the UK and Ireland and an industry helpline.

They can be contacted by phone in the UK on 0345 6051956 and via the Lighthouse Club Website.

Benevolent Funds

Many professional organisations also have Benevolent Funds (usually charities aligned with the parent organisation) that are free to access for members of that professional body and who are able to provide help and resources.

What is available from each depends on that professional organisation, so you’re best off giving them a call or looking through their website, but I’ve linked a few of the more obvious construction industry ones below.

The Chartered Association of Building Engineers: CABE Benevolent Fund

The Institution of Civil Engineers: ICE Benevolent Fund

The Chartered Institute of Building: CIOB Benevolent Fund

The Institution of Structural Engineers: IStructE Benevolent Fund

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors: LionHeart Organisation

Other Resources:

If you or your company want to do more to help out in the workplace, the Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce is offering access to a course to train as a Mental Health First Aider. The cost is £325, and it is a two day course, held online, and the next available date is the 17^th May 2023, though there are other dates available later in the year, with more details available through the Chamber Website.

The Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE) is hosting an online Mental Health Awareness Webinar on the 16^th May. You need to be a member to access this, but the details are on the CABE Website.

Mental Health UK also have a series of webinars (available online after the date if you miss the live event) that discuss Mental Health in the workplace, available on the Mental Health UK website.

References Cited Above:

Mental Health Foundation Survey: link.

NHS AMP Survey: archive link.

Priory Group Mental Health Statisticks: link.

Mind Mental Health Statistics: link.

Commons Library Statistics: link.

two green charity support ribbons against a green background, one larger than the other, supporting mental health awareness

Can You Build a Death Star?

Posted on 4th May 2023 by Amy Taylor

So, every now and then, often at the pub and / or late at night when everyone’s tired, conversations happen that are either weird or surreal or, more often than not, both.

Such conversations include things like ‘who would win in a fight between spacemen and ninjas’ and ‘who should play such and such a character from my favourite book’. They nearly always devolve into further nonsense and have been known to elicit arguments leading to people not speaking to each other for several minutes at a time.

Despite all that, they’re still nowhere near as divisive as Monopoly.

Anyway, one recent discussion, and one which even has a tenuous (very, very tenuous) link to the construction industry, is the eternal:

How feasible is it to build the Death Star?

It’s a question that has also weighed heavy upon the denizens of the internet, although, as one such denizen, I can confirm that we’re also weighed heavily upon by pictures of cute animals, videos of cats with their heads stuck in cups, and discussions of the finer points of colour theory.

Back on topic, it weighed upon people so heavily that in 2012 a petition with over 34,000 signatures was sent to the White House asking them to consider building a Death Star.

No, really. It even made BBC News !

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) the White House was forced to concede that there were no plans to build a Death Star, nor was there likely to ever be any such plans. The official response from the White House is hilarious and surprisingly well thought out and can be read in full here on Wired.com .

I’m not even going to allow myself to consider how different the response would have been from the Trump Administration.

What would a Death Star even cost?

The estimated price alone would surely put most nations off the idea of building something as astronomically (heh) expensive as the Death Star, because the estimated cost put forward by the White House is in excess of $850,000,000,000,000,000. That’s eight hundred and fifty quadrillion dollars, which is an amount of money that even my limited knowledge of economics says is going to be hard for a planet to scrape together, let alone a single county.

It does though raise interesting questions about the economy of the Galactic Empire and their movement of materials and goods before you even get onto the technology required to move a giant metal football through space.

And how long would it even take to build?

On to the subject of materials, it’s estimated that it would take 830,000 years at current global output levels to produce the amount of steel needed for just the superstructure of the Death Star.

I mean, steel probably isn’t the best option for building space craft anyway considering its strength vs its mass, and surely you’d go for something like ceramics or carbon fibre or even aluminium like they used in the space shuttles, but that’s beside the point.

Then you’ve got to get all that metal into space, along with all the infrastructure for putting it together, and then you’ve got to keep it all in a consistent geostationary orbit, which even my (admittedly basic) grasp of physics says is going to require its own infrastructure and fuel supply.

So, let’s assume that to get past that issue, you build it in open space. There’s plenty of that around even within our solar system. You could even wrangle a handy asteroid or two to mine for minerals and resources for the building project (as discussed on Space.com ). You’d then still have to account for how you’re going to protect everything against solar radiation and space debris, how to get your workforce to and from the infrastructure, and the little things like how to shield the giant laser so it doesn’t kill everyone within the Death Star.

Then, then, assuming that you happen to have a spare planet or three’s entire GDP lying around next to your conveniently placed asteroids, you still need to think about running costs.

Speaking of Running Costs…

My handy Haynes Manual (yes I’m that much of a nerd, also my parents are awesome) tells me that the Death Star operates with a population of around 1.2 million people, though other equally nerdy estimates put this closer to 2.1 million people.

Carrying enough consumables to feed that population, plus all the people, superstructure, armour, engines, guns and the whopping great laser system puts the estimated weight of the Death Star at around 900 trillion tonnes.

Ovo energy calculated, in an admittedly fast and loose fashion, that the cost of pushing all that weight through space, firing and charging the laser and keeping the crew going for just one day would be in the region of £6.2 OCTILLION!!

TL;DR

I suppose that what this really boils down to is, to paraphrase a quote from another famous movie, just because you can do something it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. Or rather, just because you can theoretically do something, it doesn’t mean that you can actually afford it.

No matter how cool you might think the Death Star is or how much of the strength of humanity it might prove to the hollow remains of the bacteria that once lived on Mars, the Death Star is (currently) an impossibility at the size shown in the movies from the point of view of cost, materials and technology.

That said, 54 years ago we landed a man on the moon using a computer with considerably less processing power than my mobile phone, so I suppose anything could be possible in another 54 years.

So long as you remember to shield the exhaust ports.

Disclaimer:

This post is not an endorsement of Ovo Energy, the White House or building your own Death Star.
The author has no legal rights or ownership to the Death Star, now owned by Disney, nor does she endorse world or galactic domination.
That said, all model Death Stars will be gratefully received and zoomed around the office complete with pew pew noises, because the author is not so secretly still a 12 year old at heart.
And on one last note, yes, there really is a Haynes Manual for the Imperial Death Star DS-1 Orbital Battle Station.

TTA 10th Anniversary Quiz Night

Posted on 31st October 2019 by Amy Taylor

A little over a week ago, Taylor Tuxford Associates hosted its inaugural quiz night in support of Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice.

(I mean, I say ‘inaugural’ no one has been brave enough yet to challenge Anne when her response to the question of whether this was going to be an annual even was a resounding “Nope!”.)

First and foremost, we’d like to thank everyone that supported us, either on the night or via donations. Everyone seemed to have a great night, and the feedback we’ve had since then has been good, though we can’t necessarily confirm that there were no sore heads the day after amongst certain quiz teams.

We’d like to express specific thanks to Lee who ran the quiz and was as brilliant as ever, as well as to Anna at Bluebell Wood who helped source the wonderful raffle prizes, and to Linda from one of the support teams who came along and spoke about the work Bluebell Wood Hospice does.

We also couldn’t have run the night as smoothly as we did without the help of the staff at the Phoenix Pavilion, and their catering team worked absolute wonders on the buffet! And last but never least, we need to thank BluCrew for their loan of the audio equipment and their support on the night.

Our quiz winners on the night were one of the teams put forward by the wonderful ladies of Winthrop Gardens (all volunteers that help run the community gardens in Wickersley). The brilliantly titled Team “At Least We Turned Up” won against a team of their compatriots in a last-minute tie breaker.

We have since been told by the group that they’re planning on using the chocolates as raffle prizes for their memory café events in support of people with dementia, and the prosecco for their Christmas volunteer support programmes.

It’s taken us a little while to confirm the total raised, largely because wonderful people keep giving us extra donations, but we are happy to announce that next week we will be handing over a cheque for £750to Bluebell Wood (embarrassing photos of that event to follow via social media).

Anne has confirmed the breakdown of totals to be £475 in ticket sales and direct donations to Bluebell Wood, and £255 in raffle ticket sales, donations etc on the night.

Again, we would like to express a massive thank you to everyone that came along and supported us on the night or has sent a donation before or since for Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice.

Diversity in the Construction Industry

Posted on 9th July 2018 by Amy Taylor

I have just been reading an article in the July edition of “Building Engineer” – the monthly Journal of the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE). I and all of our colleagues around the UK have for many years been proud of the range and breadth of topics covered by the Journal, which, in my opinion continues to punch above its weight.

One particular article caught my eye this month. It was penned by Jayne Hall, who is currently a Vice-President of the CABE and also a Past President of LABC, the national body for Local Authority Building Control in the UK. Jayne has recently also joined the Board of Trustees of the CABE Benevolent Fund, of which I am also proud to be a Trustee.

Jayne’s Journal article was explaining that the CABE Chief Executive Dr Gavin Dunn has asked her to take on the role of the CABE’s “Diversity Champion”. Jayne’s article reflects on the inalienable fact that the Construction Industry, even after years of effort, still has a poor record in regard to Equality and Diversity.

Jayne makes the observation, based on a recent professional conference in Somerset she had attended, that “…it was clear that the construction professions, and engineering in particular, are still dominated by the traditional white middle class male – also mostly well into middle age too…”

Okay, she just described me, but I do take Jayne’s point and I have to agree with her. During the six years that I sat on the Board of Directors of the CABE in the mid-2000s (at that stage it was still just called the ABE) there were typically about fifteen or so elected Directors and Honorary Officers, of whom I cannot recall there ever being more than three women elected to the Board at any one time. But to be fair, that merely reflected the proportion of women standing for election … though one can only wonder how much a lack of encouragement to our female members may have restricted the numbers willing to stick their head above the parapet?

Similarly, I regularly sit on interview panels assessing Candidates for admission to Chartered level Membership of the CABE and the ratio of male to female candidates in my experience, is well in excess of 10:1. And yet, two of the four most impressive Candidates I can recall interviewing over the past years have been female (take a bow Karen and Saira, you were both excellent). It has been suggested that women have to try harder to justify their place in the industry, which is truly a shame.

I chuckled at some of the examples Jayne quoted in her article though, of “reasons” (i.e. pitiful excuses) for the lack of women employed in high level positions, which apparently have ranged from “…the board room being an uncomfortable place for women…” to “…the issues discussed at board level are very complex…” Oh, deary me….

Now, the Taylor Tuxford Associates Board meetings typically cover a whole range of issues ranging through: technical difficulties regarding ongoing projects, to establishing our Corporate policy with regard to the General Data Protection Regulations, to where we’re going for the Christmas Party. My own experience has been that none of the issues arising at any of our Board meetings have caused any of my female colleagues to fall off their chairs with a bad case of “the vapours”… that only tends to happen when we run out of wine at the Christmas Party, and isn’t just restricted to my female colleagues!

For the record, I am pleased to say that three-quarters of the total number of employees and two-thirds of the construction-related technical team at Taylor Tuxford Associates are female and moreover, I am proud to have the opportunity to work with them.

Alright, so there are only four of us altogether and maybe, as Amy always says, you can prove anything you want to with statistics, but we honestly are trying our best in that regard and, like the CABE, we are punching above our weight when it comes to gender diversity in the workplace.

To finish on a serious note though, the construction industry still has an awfully long way to go in this regard. It is still a novelty to find a female on a construction site – whether in a supervisory or technical capacity or on the tools – and in part, this is likely related to the apparent tendency for blokes not to accept women co-workers as they would another bloke and the (understandable) reluctance of women not to want to expose themselves to the often-misogynistic attitudes of their male co-workers.

The place to make a start on addressing the diversity imbalance is in our Schools. Until such time as pupils in the advanced stages of preparing for their GCSEs are persuaded – irrespective of their gender, ethnic background or of any inherent disability – that Construction as a career will be a worthwhile thing to do, then we are still going to be having this discussion in a further 20 years’ time.

If there are any Schools out there in the South Yorkshire area that would like someone to come along and give a presentation to their pupils about a career in construction, we will be very happy to talk to you about that.

Rhys Taylor
July 2018

Continuing Professional Development

Posted on 20th February 2018 by Amy Taylor

All practising professional engineers, surveyors and architectural designers are required to undertake a certain amount of what is referred to as “Continuing Professional Development” or “CPD” for short. For example, as a Chartered Building Engineer and Fellow of the Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE), I am required to undertake a minimum of 35 hours per year of CPD.

Similar requirements are placed upon professionals in other disciplines / industries and the whole point is that one is expected to strive to maintain one’s knowledge of the latest developments and current thinking in the working environment. We would all hope that our Family Doctor will be up to speed on the latest methods of diagnosis and treatment of whatever ailments we may suffer from and the same applies in the construction industry.

CPD can take many forms. The importance of keeping abreast of the latest techniques for design and analysis are obvious, along with being aware of any recent legal cases – the judgements applied to which can impact particularly on how as an appointed Surveyor, one deals with for example, disputes under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.

CPD can also include “horizon broadening activities” and the list here is as long as one cares to make it. As an example, our newest recruit Amy has been shadowing me on several site inspections lately. Although Amy is primarily a Geotechnical Engineer (translation – “a Geologist who has been drawn to the ‘dark side’ of Engineering”) the experience of seeing how others deal with boundary disputes, structural inspections and measurement surveys of buildings will be invaluable in improving not only her usefulness to the company but also, the breadth of her understanding of other elements of Building Engineering as they interface with her own, specialised areas of work.

I have the honour and pleasure to regularly sit on a panel of experienced professionals, interviewing prospective members of the CABE to determine that they have met the required standards of experience, knowledge and professionalism to be accepted as chartered members of the Association. One of the topics raised and discussed in the interview process is the candidate’s record of CPD attendance – not just in terms of the hours spent undergoing CPD, but also the quality of that CPD and its relevance to their work.

But, I honestly cannot remember ever being asked by a Client for details of my own CPD record at any stage during a project, let alone before they engage my services. Now, one might argue that the Client is entitled to take it for granted that, as a practising member of a professional organisation they will be on top of their obligations regarding CPD. It has been my experience that not all professionals take this as seriously as we would wish to believe.

For our Clients’ comfort and peace of mind, I can confirm that all of the technical staff at Taylor Tuxford Associates either meet or comfortably exceed the requirements of their professional bodies in terms of the hours of CPD they carry out each year.

I have just completed and submitted my CPD “return” for 2017 for 50 hours of CPD completed. Over the past three calendar years, my personal cumulative CPD attendances have been in excess of 190 hours in total. This includes some community work – for example, assisting local charitable organisations and groups with their construction-related issues and projects, including Bold Adventures in Bolsterstone and the Maltby Miners Memorial Trust, for whom we have been providing architectural and structural design assistance. We have also previously assisted on three projects locally for the BBCTV DIY SOS programme – it all helps.

Significantly, however, the CPD Hours that we register do not include time spent on other community work for non-construction related causes – primarily in our case, this would be the time that Michelle, Amy, Anne and me spend on fund raising activities for local and national charities through the entertainments group BluCrew – for details see elsewhere on our website on visit www.facebook.com/BluCrew/

Rhys Taylor
Feburary 2018

Hi, I’m Amy and I’m a knitter…

Posted on 17th January 2018 by Amy Taylor

Write a blog post, they said, it’ll be easy, they said… So, uh, yeah, hi, I’m Amy, newest recruit for Taylor Tuxford Associates. I’m going to be the company Engineering Geologist, social media wrangler and have the dubious distinction of being Rhys and Anne’s daughter

I studied Geology at the University of Manchester for my undergraduate degree after which I promptly discovered that no matter how much fun it might have been, there are surprisingly few jobs that use a straight geology degree! And it was fun… or at least that’s the word the lecturers were using when we were halfway up a mountain in Snowdonia and the rain was coming in sideways. There was also the point at which my flatmates were convinced I was doing a degree in joining the dots and colouring in, but I’m not bitter about that.

I took a break from all things geology related for a year or so after finishing my undergraduate degree, before starting a Masters’ degree in Engineering Geology at the University of Leeds. Engineering geology is essentially geology but with less rocks and more soils and maths.

As an aside, the difference between engineering geology and geotechnical engineering is essentially the amount of maths involved. Engineering geologists are geologists that have been swayed to the dark side of engineering; geotechnical engineers are often civil engineers that have seen the light. Both are convinced they are superior to the other and both are kinda looked down on by “proper” geologists and engineers.

It later turned out that an Engineering Geology Masters’ degree is basically a gateway to academia and I was lured even further to the dark side by the promise of funding for a PhD.

In related news, I may have lost control of this metaphor.

Anyway, I moved to Sheffield, started work in the Civil & Structural Engineering department of the University of Sheffield and was made to interact with Engineers on a daily basis. Having grown up with a Structural Engineer parent, I was well practised in distracting them by offering large amounts of tea and biscuits and, if necessary, scaring them away by discussing such things as Miller Indices and geophysics.

Working for a PhD is a full time job in which you become more than a little obsessed over a single topic and slowly develop a case of imposter syndrome. You learn a lot about your topic and learn even more about all the things you don’t know, leading to a constant feeling that you’re a fraud and that you don’t belong there and that someone, somewhere must have made a mistake. I’m assured that everyone in our research group felt that way at some point.

But I am now one of only a handful of people in the UK and Ireland that can even vaguely consider themselves an expert in expansive pyritic mudrocks… which is nice.

I’m going to be working with Rhys and Michelle on the Geotechnical side of things within the company, as well as taking on some of the design and site investigation work.

Amy Taylor

January 2018