Workplace Mental Health & Safety Assessments (WMHSA) provides practical assessment resources for identifying gaps in organisational mental-health support and response arrangements. The central objective is to establish whether foreseeable situations involving emotional distress or mental-health difficulty are adequately controlled in practice.
What Is WMHSA?
Workplace Mental Health & Safety Assessments (WMHSA) is an initiative of the International Mental Health Infrastructures (IMHI) Group. It provides assessment resources intended to help organisations identify situations in which employees may require mental-health support and determine whether appropriate arrangements are available.
Its current published assessment, Workplace Mental Health & Safety Assessment: Support & Response, examines ten foreseeable situations. These range from identifying available support and contacting trained personnel to obtaining immediate stabilisation, accessing emergency assistance and receiving continuing support following an incident or period of absence.
The assessment applies established health and safety principles to mental-health support and response. For each foreseeable situation, it asks a practical question:
Is the situation adequately controlled by arrangements that employees can actually access and use?
This distinction is important. An organisation may have policies, training programmes and professional services without those arrangements being accessible in every relevant circumstance.
For example, an Employee Assistance Programme may provide confidential counselling but may not provide immediate stabilisation to someone experiencing acute distress who is unwilling to call another person.
WMHSA helps organisations examine such differences. Its approach is to assess the availability and adequacy of relevant controls, identify gaps and support appropriate corrective action.
Who It Is For
WMHSA is intended for individuals and organisations responsible for assessing, managing or advising on workplace health and safety.
- Employers and Business Leaders
- Employers can use WMHSA to review whether their mental-health support arrangements address foreseeable situations and identify areas requiring improvement.
- Health & Safety Professionals
- Health and safety officers, HSE managers, EHS professionals and safety directors can incorporate relevant WMHSA findings into their broader assessment and risk-management processes.
- Risk Assessors
- Internal and independent risk assessors can use the published assessment to examine support and response arrangements alongside other workplace risks.
- Human Resources Departments
- HR professionals can evaluate whether employees know how to access available assistance, whether support is confidential and whether appropriate arrangements exist during and after periods of distress.
- Occupational-Health Professionals
- Occupational-health teams can consider the assessment in relation to professional support, workplace adjustments, return-to-work arrangements and continuing care.
- Educational Institutions
- Schools, colleges and universities can consider relevant assessment principles when evaluating arrangements affecting employees and, where appropriate, students.
- Healthcare Institutions
- Hospitals and other healthcare organisations can consider support and response needs affecting staff and, where relevant, patients and other people within their facilities.
- Government and Public Organisations
- Public-sector employers and institutions can use the framework to review relevant mental-health support arrangements across their workplaces and facilities.
The applicable legal responsibilities may differ according to the organisation, jurisdiction and population being considered.
What WMHSA Assesses
The current published WMHSA assessment focuses on support and response. It considers what happens when a worker experiences mental-health difficulty, emotional distress or crisis. The ten situations cover:
- Identifying available mental-health support.
- Accessing professional assistance.
- Receiving immediate assistance from an available person.
- Obtaining support without asking another person for help.
- Accessing immediate stabilisation during acute distress.
- Contacting remote human assistance.
- Obtaining urgent professional crisis intervention.
- Receiving support while waiting for professional assistance.
- Receiving support following a traumatic workplace incident.
- Obtaining continuing support following mental-health-related absence or impairment.
Each situation is assessed independently. The presence of one control does not automatically establish that every other support need has been addressed.
For example, a trained responder may provide valuable in-person support, but the assessment must also consider situations where a worker does not wish to disclose their distress. Likewise, the availability of professional counselling does not necessarily establish that a worker can obtain immediate stabilisation before a professional becomes available.
WMHSA therefore focuses on the practical adequacy of the entire support and response arrangement. Each situation is explained in full in The Framework.
Where It Fits
Workplace mental health and safety involves several complementary activities. These include:
- Identifying psychosocial hazards.
- Preventing harmful working conditions.
- Reducing occupational stressors.
- Providing education and training.
- Establishing appropriate support services.
- Responding to acute incidents.
- Supporting recovery and return to work.
- Monitoring whether controls remain effective.
WMHSA's Support & Response assessment addresses a specific part of this wider framework. It examines the availability of support when mental-health difficulty or emotional distress occurs.
This complements established approaches such as the UK Health and Safety Executive's work-related stress assessment guidance and ISO 45003, which addresses the management of psychosocial risks.
Prevention remains essential. An organisation should address harmful working conditions rather than rely on support services to compensate for avoidable risks. However, even where preventive measures are appropriate, employees may still experience emotional distress and require assistance.
The purpose of WMHSA is to help ensure that this response layer is not overlooked.
What It Is Not
The current WMHSA Support & Response assessment is a focused assessment resource. It is not intended to replace every other assessment or professional process relevant to workplace psychological health.
- Not a Complete Psychosocial Hazard Assessment
- WMHSA's Support & Response assessment does not comprehensively assess every source of work-related stress, bullying, harassment, workload pressure or organisational risk. Those matters require appropriate assessment and prevention arrangements.
- Not a Clinical Assessment
- WMHSA does not diagnose mental-health conditions or determine an individual's need for medical treatment.
- Not a Replacement for Emergency Planning
- Organisations must maintain emergency arrangements appropriate to their activities, risks and legal responsibilities.
- Not Legal Certification
- Completing a WMHSA assessment does not, by itself, certify that an organisation complies with applicable health and safety law.
- Not a Substitute for Existing Support
- WMHSA does not propose replacing Employee Assistance Programmes, occupational-health professionals, Mental Health First Aiders or other established services. Its objective is to evaluate the arrangements collectively and identify situations that remain inadequately controlled.