THROUGHOUT her extensive career, Poppy Jaman has consistently strived to ensure mental health remains a high priority.
As the CEO of the London-based City Mental Health Alliance (CMHA), a coalition of multinationals working together to create a culture of good mental health, the 44-year-old campaigner has helped to challenge the public’s perception of mental ill health.
In the wake of the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the work continues. CHMA has delivered web-based mental health training involving 14,000 staff, and reached out across the world to develop culturally appropriate training materials.
In November, the organisation launched the Global Thriving at Work Framework – a set of standards for multinational business, intended to help employees thrive mentally.
“As we face a global mental health crisis, every business has to be radical and relentless in its expectation of itself to support the mental health of its people,” Jaman explains.
Although the stigma attached to poor mental health has become less prevalent over the years, Jaman believes there remains a reticence to seek help when faced with mental illness.
“All too often things can escalate simply because people don’t know the signs to look out for, where to turn to for information or support or who to talk to,” she said last year.
Jaman has been open about her own battles with depression. She grew up in a traditional Bangladeshi household in Portsmouth and entered into an arranged marriage when she was 17. Three years later, Jaman had given birth to her first child and developed anxiety and postnatal depression.
“It was a very dark time, and I needed the support of my family, many of whom did not understand what I was going through or even what mental illness was,” she has explained in an interview with the Huffington Post.
Despite going to her GP and being put on medication, things worsened and Jaman experienced psychotic episodes. She was offered therapy – and it changed her life forever.
“To this day, I use talking therapy as a way to manage my mental health and wellbeing, especially when going through big life changes or upheavals,” the mother-of-four says. “I’m not mentally unwell anymore but I also want to maintain positive mental health and help prevent myself becoming unwell again.”
Her own experiences gave her an insight into the challenges people face with mental health issues, especially among ethnic minority groups. Her professional journey into mental wellbeing began in 2007 while working for the Department of Health.
Asked to investigate how to provide a mental health training package across England, Jaman realised that her passion truly lay in raising awareness on the issue.
More than a decade later, Jaman is still working to raise awareness around the world. But not only that – she has turned better understanding into action.
Alongside her work with CMHA, the health champion set up an organisation to train teachers, charity workers, employers and NHS staff to identify mental health warning signs. It now has a network of almost 2,000 instructors who have trained over 300,000 people.
In 2009, Jaman became a founding member and chief executive of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England, a not-for-profit organisation that teaches people how to identify and support individuals with mental illness.
She has supported the development of MHFA in Bangladesh as part of her initiative to support global citizens.
Until March 2020, Jaman acted as a non-executive director on the board of Public Health England (PHE). During her time in the role, the social entrepreneur influenced the creation of the national Every Mind Matters platform.
In 2019, Jaman was named Woman of the Year at the GG2 Leadership Awards. She was awarded an OBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours in recognition of her services to people with mental health issues.
