A journey towards normalizing mental health in the gaming industry
Safe in our world.
A journey towards normalizing mental health in the gaming industry
Safe in our world.
Safe In Our World: Making mental health awareness a part of companies' DNA
The charity's Sky Tunley-Stainton talks about the journey to normalizing mental well-being in the games industry
When describing the mission of Safe In Our World, the charity group's partnerships and training manager Sky Tunley-Stainton says that ultimately, it should be normal for someone to say without any stigma that they had a panic attack last night and the following morning isn’t a good day for a team meeting.
"Our mission is to foster positive mental health and well-being and deliver support," Tunley-Stainton tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Not only for players but also developers, publishers, retailers, and all the other people who make up the video games industry. Our goal is for the industry to come together and start a conversation that can change lives."
Our goal is for the industry to come together and start a conversation that can change lives
When asked what the biggest hurdle is to the industry being more accepting of mental health services and advocacy, Tunley-Stainton says it still operates from a position of "mental health support is nice to have but not essential.
They explain, "This can cause challenges such as not having a budget to put towards the effort or it's not part of a company's vision or value set.
"It's something that our program tries to combat. Becoming a level-up partner is completely free, and our resources are completely free. We're trying to avoid that barrier of entry for people being able to access those tools."
A journey towards normalizing mental health in the gaming industry
Safe in our world.
The charity's work emphasizes that mental health care and advocacy should become a basic necessity of a workplace and its staff.
Tunley-Stainton says, "One of the commitments that we ask studios [is that they] outwardly promote better conversations around mental health.
"This includes asking them to avoid using stigmatizing language on anything external facing, such as recruitment practices. This makes clearer that they are accepting and supportive of people who have mental health conditions through the hiring process."