Melody's story

Chartered accountancy and business advisors PKF Francis Clark approached caba to help them support the wellbeing of their ACA students and qualified staff. As a result, caba provided support through mental health training for their health & wellbeing champions, and specialist coaching sessions for new students which focus on adapting to change and moving into the world of work. Together they have raised the awareness of caba's other areas of support such as advisory services, counselling and career development.

As well as being a Regional Human Resources Manager, I am also the health and wellbeing co-ordinator for the firm. I believe in providing staff with the right support and with caba's services we're creating an environment where everyone can achieve their best and enjoy their work.

We trained a number of 'health and wellbeing champions' so they could support their colleagues across the organisation. Part of this included awareness training on the support available for our employees.

A Business Development Manager from caba came to meet us, and together we identified a number of areas where caba could help the organisation. I was impressed by the quality of the information on their website and I've found working with them to be a positive experience. They're very responsive - for example, I know organising counselling can take months through GP surgeries, but with caba, referrals to experienced counsellors are made very rapidly. I've been able to suggest this kind of help to several of my staff knowing they will receive quality support quickly before issues get worse.

In addition, caba have delivered awareness sessions to our champions about mental health issues and dementia so they have the right information and understanding to offer help to other staff when it's needed.

Entering the workplace is an exciting time, but students often find juggling their workload, studies and personal life difficult. We've always supported students when they join us, but caba helped us improve what we offer at this stage too. Every June, we arrange a lunch for our new student cohort before they join the organisation and encourage them to connect with each other. This year, caba presented a session at the lunch to raise awareness of the support that's available to new students - focusing on the skills that will help them to handle change and how to build their own resilience.

how caba can help