Helen is a chiefofficer on container ships. She in interested in mental health and here she shares her own experience seeking professional help. 

Resources 

Having a knowledge of these health stipulations for your own country is probably a very good idea – just to know where you stand. The UK ones can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-approved-doctors-manual

Resources available to seafarers for mental health:

1. Mission to Seafarers: https://www.missiontoseafarers.org/about/our-issues/mental-health

2. ‘The Mission to Seafarers launched the Seafarers Happiness Index in 2015 as a way to

gauge the thoughts and feelings that seafarers have about their lives at sea. Our aim is to

get the opinion of the overall seafaring community to help us understand the good and bad

aspects of this challenging career path to help us build a case for change in the industry.’

Link to the Seafarers Happiness Index survey: https://www.happyatsea.org/survey/

3. Here is a fact sheet from the university of Cardiff with some recommendations on how to improve the mental health of seafarers: https://iosh.com/media/6307/seafarers-mental- health-wellbeing-factsheet.pdf

4. Where do we go from here? https://www.seafarerswelfare.org/news/2020/mental-health-of-seafarers-what-has-the-industry-done-to-tackle-this-what-else-is-needed

5. Good mental health resources from ISWAN (charity! donate!)

https://www.seafarerswelfare.org/seafarer-health-information-programme/good-mental-health

6. the support hotline for good mental health: https://www.seafarerswelfare.org/our-work/seafarerhelp

7. Uk government is aiming to develop guidelines for training in mental health management at

sea: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/872270/Maritime_2050_-_People_route_map.pdf