Skyborne is marking World Mental Health Day and its partnership with charity Red Umbrella, by providing its trainees with a bespoke Wellbeing Platform.

Skyborne has teamed up with Red Umbrella, a provider of mental health first aid courses, to allow its trainees to access mental health support and professional assistance. This is applicable to all Skyborne staff, current trainees and graduates in the UK and US.

The Skyborne Trainee Wellbeing Platform delivers several different levels of assistance. The first level is for trainees to speak to Skyborne staff who have been trained in mental health first aid, through Red Umbrella. The second level is talking to Pilot Peers, who are current airline pilots from Red Umbrella. This stage is controlled by providing trainees with two ‘Care Coins’, which can be exchanged for four Pilot Peer sessions. The third level is having access to professional counsellors, from Red Umbrella.

“At Skyborne we believe in the importance of maintaining good mental health and wellbeing during our trainees’ time with us and in their day-to-day lives,” said Tedd Pinkney, Chief Theoretical Knowledge Instructor, Skyborne. “We understand that our trainees may face some issues and challenges on their training journey, which can have an impact on their mental wellbeing. With the introduction of our Skyborne Wellbeing Platform, we hope this will encourage our trainees to be more forthcoming with any issues. This, in turn, will help us to provide the necessary support to get them back on track.”

Red Umbrella provides qualified mental health first aid training to organisations and works with companies to provide unique portals to suit their specific needs. Each person who becomes a mental health first aider participates in a two-day course that leads to accreditation as an Ofqual level 3 Mental Health First Aider. At Skyborne three employees have completed this training. Red Umbrella already works with a number of aviation institutions in the UK, helping to build bespoke platforms, to decrease the stigma around mental health in aviation.