This time last year, Foothold had just launched a new brand. With only a few website pages, we were determined to make sure our community had the support they needed over the December period. We created support content, including videos and guides to help when Brexit was the talk at the table, ways to cope with stress and more. 300 people found support through this content alone.  This year, we’re doing more to meet the needs of people in our community who are facing challenges due to the coronavirus. December Support Hub is part of that effort.

You’re not alone

Foothold is a community. It’s made up of engineers and their families all over the world. And this year, we want to make sure that more people than ever realise they are not alone. Whatever challenges people are facing, however hard it is to cope with, our message this December is ‘you’re not alone’. Support will be re-enforced at every level, and we will seek to break down the stigma in reaching out for help.

Practical support

Loneliness is a major challenge for many people during December. With prolonged periods of social distancing and isolation, people are more at risk of mental health problems like depression, anxiety and unmanageable stress. These problems can manifest in various ways, so support has been expanded to include practical online support. This will include a webinar on how to improve your sleep, a webinar on ways to cope with the pressures of this period, as well as guides and videos to help people manage during December.

Building a community

There are thousands of people around the world that belong to the Foothold community. And yet, when facing challenges like money worries, redundancy or mental health problems, many of those people will feel alone.

We’re striving to build a deeper sense of community and belonging for everyone. The first step is to recognise that these are people. Not audiences, not clients or customers or whatever else groups of people are called – but people. With a dedicated December Facebook group and a conversational webinar scheduled, we will simply check in, chat, show up and remind people that they’re not alone.

Listening and adapting

We expanded our support this year to better meet the needs people are facing due to the pandemic. Any plans we had at the start of the year have been adapted or abandoned to make sure that the support was there for the people who needed it.

We are planning to increase the number of people we support through the December Support Hub to more than 300 people. With the adaptations to our support, the building of community and the reminders that this is a community to which engineers and their families the world over belong to, here’s to 300 more.

If this time of year feels challenging, a bit of reassurance and support in the form of our December Support Hub might be just what you need. SIGN UP HERE.