Supporting Staff who have Children with Mental Illness 2025

One in three sick days isn’t about the employee—it’s about their child’s mental health. Join our webinar to explore how New Zealand workplaces can better support families facing this growing crisis.

One large New Zealand company discovered that almost one third of the sick leave their staff took, was not because the staff themselves were sick, but they were looking after children with severe mental illness. Sometimes their children are as old as 30. The company also found many excellent employees were quitting their jobs completely to look after their children full time. This company is not unique; staff taking large amounts of time off to look after sick children is happening to many companies throughout New Zealand. A lot of this is caused by long waits to see mental health specialists. 

This webinar will look at some of the trends around the high rates of children with mental illness, what can be done to address the issues faster and what can be done to support the entire family.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

SUITED TO

All

PRESENTER

Michael Hempseed, Author, beingatruehero.com

Michael Hempseed is the co-author of Calming your Child and author of Being A True Hero: Understanding and Preventing Suicide in Your Community. He has spoken to Fonterra, NZ Post, Fire and Emergency NZ and many others. Michael gained an honours degree in Psychology from the University of Canterbury in 2008. In 2016 he spoke at TEDx. He aims to take complex scientific information and present it in an insightful and fascinating way.