Sean Price & Steve Phillip

This week podcast hosted by Sean Price is with Steve Phillip Suicide Prevention and Workplace Well-being Advocate and Founder of The Jordan Legacy.

Today’s episode we hear about Steve Phillips experience and The Jordan Legacy Foundation. Listening to his story of the day he had one of the worst calls anyone can possibly get. 4:22 pm, Wednesday December 4th 2019, Steve answered the phone to his Son’s girlfriend crying later informing him that his 34 year old son Jordan took his own life…

“Every 40 seconds someone in the world takes their own life” - World Health Organisation

Steve later set up The Jordan Legacy with the hopes to achieve 4 main goals 1.To improve the mental health and wellbeing of individuals.

2. To reduce feelings of social isolation and increase community spirit.

3. To improve support structures within organisations to improve staff wellbeing and quality of life.

4. To support a societal change in culture from ‘what you have’ to ‘who you are’ being most important.

Steve now goes to global businesses to help and inform them about how to recognise and tackle bad mental health amongst staff, supporting them with issues regarding wellbeing in the workplace. Even mentioning his talks with architects that design certain buildings in order to prevent suicides from occurring, similar to the nets placed on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

We also mention the British “stiff upper lip” mentality within UK society. When it comes to opening up about failures and personal problems building up affecting our mental health the UK tend to reserve and bottle up their issues. Taking a look at how the UK education system doesn’t give you the correct skills in order for dealing with hardships and failure. This has resulted with many young people being unable to speak their mind and feel comfortable to bring up certain topics to family and friends in later life. Even till today, its still obvious that the new generation of young people are still affected, hearing about the conversations Sean and Steve have both had with younger members of staff, being distraught mentioning they are a “failure” because they haven’t got a sports car, house etc (even though they are only 21). There has been a recent trend on social media, where people are portraying their lives in a warped exaggerated way where the majority see the minority’s Lavished luxurious life and start to think that’s the goal/ the norm.

“50% of mental health issues in adults are formed during their younger years between the ages 7-12”- Steve speaks on how we still have a “Victorian old” education system, in regard to teaching the same curriculum as they did many years ago. Sean and Steve Speak about what they think should also be taught to children in order to help them with tackling issues in life, suggesting if a child’s mental health or trauma can be helped at a young age then there would be a significant reduction of poor mental health cases in adults. Sean also mentions how in the US their culture allows them to seek more help. As suggesting help such as therapy in the UK isn’t always met with an open mind (as stereotypically people in the UK are much more reserved about their feelings and thoughts than the US).

19th July Freedom Day or Fear Day? We hear both Sean and Steve’s opinions on the Covid-19 restrictions being lifted. Talking about how its necessary to get back to normality. For many reasons like the re strengthening the UK’s economy but also in order to allow people to socialise freely, which has proven to be aiding people’s mental health.