Flow opens dialogue on menopause and mental health

Flow Trinidad used Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month to open con­ver­sa­tions on women’s health in the work­place, host­ing well­ness ses­sions at its Trinci­ty head of­fice fo­cused on men­tal well­be­ing and sup­port for women, moth­ers, and care­givers.

Vice Pres­i­dent and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Si­mone Mar­tin-Sul­gan said cre­at­ing space for sen­si­tive work­place con­ver­sa­tions was im­por­tant in sup­port­ing em­ploy­ees.

“Cre­at­ing space for sen­si­tive con­ver­sa­tions at work is an im­por­tant step to­ward sup­port­ing one an­oth­er and en­abling em­ploy­ees to bring their whole selves to work each day,” she said, adding that “well-be­ing is a shared pri­or­i­ty.”

The ses­sions fo­cused on top­ics sur­round­ing per­i­menopause and menopause, en­cour­ag­ing open dis­cus­sions on is­sues af­fect­ing many women but which are of­ten not wide­ly ad­dressed in work­place set­tings.

Dr. Shenelle Ash­ton of the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion de­liv­ered a pre­sen­ta­tion on hor­mon­al and phys­i­cal changes linked to the men­stru­al cy­cle, symp­toms of menopause, and treat­ment op­tions for man­ag­ing per­i­menopause and post-menopausal symp­toms.

The pre­sen­ta­tion al­so out­lined warn­ing signs that may re­quire spe­cial­ist med­ical at­ten­tion.

Mar­tin-Sul­gan al­so point­ed to the com­pa­ny’s em­ploy­ee sup­port sys­tems, in­clud­ing its Flex­i­ble Paid Time Off pol­i­cy and Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme, which of­fers con­fi­den­tial pro­fes­sion­al guid­ance for staff need­ing ad­di­tion­al sup­port.

Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month was found­ed by Men­tal Health Amer­i­ca in 1949 to pro­mote aware­ness of men­tal well-be­ing, re­duce stig­ma, and en­cour­age sup­port for peo­ple liv­ing with men­tal health con­di­tions.