If you’ve seen us mentioned in Business Live, Insider Media and other regional publications, Ascento has now become employee owned and operates for the benefit of the employees of the company, allowing all employees to share in its success and ensure the long term future of the business.  

As it's Employee Ownership Day, we thought it was time to comment on why we made this decision. Outgoing Founder and Managing Director Chris Ash, says “I have been really excited to step aside as the sole owner of the company and cannot wait for the whole team to share in the next exciting stage of our journey. 

Becoming employee owned means we are stronger together, means that we can all share in our successes and the culture will continue to strive through a collective spirit and drive.”

According to Personnel Today, the number of employees reporting mental health worries is up 24% since May 2020, research has revealed from Mental Health Awareness Week.

I qualified as a Mental Health First Aider in July 2019 and the course had a profound affect on me. The Mental Health First Aid course is designed to provide employees and managers with the expertise and confidence to recognise symptoms of mental illness in the workplace. It teaches them how to help workers who are struggling with these problems enabling them to seek assistance.

The main outcomes of the course are to ensure you have:-

• a thorough understanding of mental health and the factors that influence it
• practical knowledge of the causes and symptoms of a variety of mental illnesses
• confidence to step in, reassure and support a person in distress using the mental health first aid action plan
• enhanced interpersonal skills such as non-judgemental listening
• knowledge to help someone recover their health by guiding them to further support - whether through self-help resources, internal support such as EAP, or external sources such as their GP
• an understanding of how to keep themselves safe while performing their duties
• a quick reference card for the mental health first aid action plan

The hard work of leaders, tutors and staff at Ascento Learning and Development has been recognised within a recent report following on from our recent progress monitoring visit from Ofsted.