Australian creative industry joins together for mental health and wellbeing initiative
The first major study into the mental health and wellbeing of the Australian creative and marketing industries is being conducted, in order to bring transparency to the issues facing people in the industry.
Australian ad industry unites on mental health project
Led by creative community Never Not Creative, mental health organisation Everymind and social purpose organisation Unltd, the project has also been endorsed by AGDA, IAB, MFA and YoungBloods.
The first phase will be the launch of a major study into the wellbeing of people in the industry and attitudes towards mental health.
Mental health is a huge issue, and more recently a passion point for many in the industry, as people seek to avoid burning out and getting a good balance in life. The Drum took mental health as its topic for Do It Day in 2017 and gathered hundreds of marketers and advertisers to ‘hack’ out answers to briefs around the topic of destigmatizing mental health.
Andy Wright, founder of Never Not Creative, a community supporting the wellbeing of people in the creative industry, said: “Whilst the stories of burn-out and stress are commonly heard in our industry and we all intuitively know that the issue is widespread, so far there has been no concrete statistics to quantify the problem. This study will bring robust data backed by credible and proven methodologies to start us on the path to identifying solutions.”
Other organisations supporting the project include Streamtime, Tonic Health Media, Bold Media and batyr.
Chris Freel, CEO of UnLtd, said: “Through working with our charity partners such as batyr, we know what a critical issue mental ill-health is. We know one in five Australians experience a mental illness every year but over half of those will not seek help. Sadly, suicide is still the biggest killer of young Australians aged 15-44. We also know from conversations with our corporate partners, that mental health is a topic that people in our industry can relate to and something that affects people across all levels.”
The timeline for the project is to run the survey throughout August and September, with results being shared before the end of the year.