In the eighth of the series, Jason Berry, co-founder of the Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC) talks to Katherine Stagg.
Stagg is senior mortgage and protection Adviser at Mortgage Advice Hub (MAH), who are a part of MAB. She was the driving force behind MAH becoming a signatory to The MIMHC.
In their wide-ranging discussion, Stagg shares her personal approach to maintaining a healthy mental state which stems from her personal experiences in managing her own mental health.
She found herself struggling with the isolation of Covid and undertook Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help develop her coping strategies. Central to this is writing down the challenges she faces and the approach she will take to find solutions.
She takes a step-by-step approach so that she isn’t overwhelmed. Through CBT, Stagg also learns how to manage her negative thoughts and again by taking pen to paper, can find positive outcomes to the daily challenges she faces providing mortgage advice to her clients.
In the turbulent last 12 months the mortgage market has faced, Stagg has learnt to strike the right balance between her work and home life and to better integrate the two.
She encourages all employers to become accessible, be there for their employees and is a huge advocate of ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’. Having the courage to start the conversation is always the first step to better mental health.
In forthcoming videos, Berry will be chatting with key figures across the mortgage industry about how they keep the mental health conversation going in their businesses.
MIMHC is a not-for-profit organisation that was founded to raise awareness of employees’ mental health and how the industry can take positive action to improve it.
MIMHC is made up of seven co-founding firms plus almost 80 signatory companies across the mortgage industry that represent over 15,000 individuals.
All these firms agree to be bound by MIMHC’s six Governing Rules which apply best practice health and wellbeing guidelines and are summarised as ‘The MIMHC Charter’.
