Arcadia Ireland

Myself along with Amanda Zimmerman, Program Manager, have been friends and colleagues for over fifteen years. The time seemed right for us to now move outside our normal working communications into something related to staff wellbeing. We met a few weeks ago on a long overdue zoom call and came up with a plan. The topic is "Work Life Balance and your Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic." This is a time where we are all being forced to work in a different way during a world crisis. Many of us may be caught in the Sandwich generation where we are caring for young children but at the same time remaining mindful of aging parents. Some are being forced to find a space on the ground in a bedroom or on the side of bed just to keep the workflow moving in the right direction. It isn’t all doom and gloom though and in fact many people in Ireland and beyond have commented on the positives of sitting through this strange time.  For many there are less commutes to work, more time to see our families, more time to sleep or exercise instead of a long car journey, more energy amongst others.  It didn’t surprise me when I read in a recent survey that many Americans outlined that they would never actually return to the way their lives used to be in relation to work. We are aware though that for many, this is a very difficult time. People miss the daily in person chats with colleagues and friends or the sense of accomplishment at the end of a highly productive day. Others miss the space that they can find within themselves at work to give their best shot at something and be outside the role of parent or carer. There are multitude of things that we might be missing right now.  In a way this prompted us to think about everyone and ask that all important question of “How are we coping these days”.  

The plan is that we will gather as many responses from TCGS staff as possible and will review the data to share with everyone. We hope to provide a list of resources including simple tips to make this time more manageable. We don’t know for sure how long this will last so this is our normal for a while.  Our hope is that this project will extend beyond the Covid – 19 pandemic and become a support during other challenging or “different” times in our lives.  Our hope is that by doing this we will give something more to the TCGS community and begin a staff mental health conversation that we feel is long overdue.