What we do

Here at For Our Men™ we believe in discussing men’s mental and emotional health in the workplace (and in general) with direct honesty, humour and a few swear words thrown in for good measure. In other words; humanity over pathology.

You won’t find cold, clinical or medical language used here (without explaining it); we’re all about making men’s health easy and accessible to everyone who wants to understand themselves, their mates and their colleagues better.

We believe that many organisations both in public and private sectors, whilst attempting to put mental health policies and initiatives in place, are still getting it wrong especially when it comes to men’s mental health specifically which is why we’re all about awareness, education and creating proactive and effective support for our men.

We don’t believe advocating for and supporting men has to mean not supporting women and other groups in the workplace; pain and trauma aren’t competitions but it’s vital that every group in our workplaces and wider society are given the specific recognition, education and support they deserve.

Our mission…

To discuss men’s mental and emotional health without the bullshit.

There’s a lot of ‘hashtag healthcare’ and box ticking going on in workplace wellbeing right now and whilst there are lots of awareness campaigns focusing on men’s social activities, we believe the key to reducing men’s suicide rates lies in getting their support right in the workplace!

We aim to educate workplaces on the difference in men’s mental health to other groups and create effective support and wellbeing initiatives specifically for them, focusing on male-dominated sectors and organisations.

Our objectives…

Continue to deliver education and training to leaders and managers to help them be more confident in discussing mental and emotional health with colleagues
Run events for men to learn more about themselves and each other and how to talk to each other about their mental health
Build a collection of personal stories and interviews by men across workplace sectors discussing a wide range of issues
Discuss specific issues that men face in each sector/profession (e.g. the stressors a brickie will face will be different to police)
Share articles from guest authors on a variety of topics and how they effect men
Create sector-specific awareness and education to help grow For Our Men to cover the following sectors:
- Emergency Services (our current focus)
- Military
- Professional Services (legal/accounting etc.)
- Trade
- Medical
- Sports
- Freelancers
- The Arts (music/acting etc.)
- Farming (including veterinary)

What we’d really like For Our Men to become is a community space run by men supporting and empowering each other through the shit times in life!

Our police objectives…

We’re currently focusing our efforts on police (as this website was borne from their need) and have created a members-only access arm for men in policing to build an informal national network for them.

You can read more about our membership and police objectives in detail here.

Here’s what we hope For Our Men will deliver to our Thin Blue Line (and eventually our Red and Green Lines too):

Create a national honour roll for suicide
Publish personal stories and interviews
Create a national peer-support database and network
Run events for men
Create a national network of drop-in coffee sessions
Continue to work with services around men’s mental health

Whilst we predominantly focus our police efforts on men we do recognise that much of what we’re attempting to achieve will positively impact other groups in the organisation and we hope that if our work with men is adopted, we can extend our educational and consulting provisions to others.

Our hope is that the informal national network for men in policing can include international officers and if successful, be rolled out across both the fire and ambulance services.

It’s a lot to achieve when you see it in black and white isn’t it? And whilst we don’t promise we can deliver on every goal we have or the timescale we can complete them in, we do promise that we will do our best for our men and remain transparent about our deliverance throughout. After all, you only really fail when you stop trying!

If you feel that you can help us achieve these goals, both our grand plans and police objectives, please check out our “Get involved” page for more details!

Who we’ve worked with so far…

Our founder has presented to around 600 Blue Light personnel (in just 6 months on their own!) including Assistant and Deputy Chief Constables on the topic of men’s mental health in the emergency services, running workshops with groups of 30 officers and staff right up to presentations of 150 and presenting at Senior Leadership Team (SLT) meetings.

We’ve had the privilege to deliver presentations and workshops discussing men’s mental health to the following: