COVID-19 Homeworking & Mental Health

During the current crisis, everybody should be practising social distancing. This means reducing physical interaction between people in order to minimise the transmission of Covid-19. You should:

1. Ensure that you remain six feet away from any other individual.

2. Avoid contact with someone who is displaying symptoms of coronavirus. These symptoms include a high temperature and/or a new and continuous cough.

3. Avoid non-essential use of public transport when possible.

4. Work from home, where possible.

5. Avoid large and small gatherings in public spaces, noting that pubs, restaurants, leisure centres and similar venues are currently shut as infections spread easily in closed spaces where people gather together.

6. Avoid gatherings with friends and family. Keep in touch using remote technology such as phone, internet, and social media.

7. Use telephone or online services to contact your GP or other essential services.

In addition, some individuals are asked to self-isolate. This means that you should not leave your home for the self-isolation period. You should self-isolate for at least seven days if you have symptoms including a high temperature and/or a new and continuous cough. If you come into contact with somebody who has these symptoms then you should self-isolate for fourteen days.

If you fall into the following categories you should self-isolate for twelve weeks whether you have symptoms or not:

Aged 70 or older (regardless of medical conditions).

Under 70 with an underlying health condition listed below (ie anyone instructed to get a flu jab as an adult each year on medical grounds):

• Chronic (long-term) respiratory diseases, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema or bronchitis.
• Chronic heart disease, such as heart failure.
• Chronic kidney disease.
• Chronic liver disease, such as hepatitis.
• Chronic neurological conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), a learning disability or cerebral palsy.
• Diabetes.
• Problems with your spleen – for example, sickle cell disease or if you have had your spleen removed.
• A weakened immune system as the result of conditions such as HIV and AIDS, or medicines such as steroid tablets or chemotherapy.
• Being seriously overweight (a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or above).
• Those who are pregnant.
• People who have received an organ transplant and remain on ongoing immunosuppression medication.
• People with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
• People with cancers of the blood or bone marrow such as leukaemia who are at any stage of treatment.  People with severe chest conditions such as cystic fibrosis or severe asthma (requiring hospital admissions or courses of steroid tablets).
• People with severe diseases of body systems, such as severe kidney disease (dialysis).

If you are in any doubt about whether to self-isolate, then you should consult your GP via telephone or 111 via their website

Ergonomics: setting up your work area When we are in work, we operate in a clearly defined work area with our equipment set up in a way that best suits our posture and minimises the risk of strain or injury. This should also be the case when working from home.

No matter how tempting it may be to work from bed or the couch, this will not be beneficial in the short term and may cause injury in the long term. It also makes it harder to differentiate our work life from our home life, which can impact on the number of hours we are working as well as our mental health.

You should establish a clear work area in the house. Ideally, this would be in a corner of a room that you can leave when your workday is finished. If this is not possible, then you should close down and tidy away all of your work equipment from whatever area it occupies when you are finished. For example, your computer should not remain on your dining table when you are eating your evening meal.

Display Screen Equipment assessment and provision of proper equipment (including adjustments)

Health and safety legislation imposes a duty on employers to minimise the risks posed by Display Screen Equipment (DSE) including PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Where you are working from home on a long-term basis, the risks associated with DSE equipment must be controlled just as they must be within the workplace.

Your employer should:

• Do a home workstation assessment or provide you with the guidance to allow you to do so for yourself.
• Meet your needs for specialist work equipment where possible, including allowing you to take equipment such as keyboards, mouse, risers, etc, home.
• Where it isn’t practical to take equipment home, such as ergonomic chairs or height adjustable desks, encourage you to find other ways of creating a comfortable working environment.

Where you cannot work safely without particular equipment and that equipment is not available to you outside the workplace, you should not be working from home until that equipment is provided. Your employer should continue to pay you during this time, as you are available to work but prevented from doing so by the lack of a reasonable adjustment.

Your union representative should be able to advise on your specific employer’s policy in relation to this.

In addition to ensuring that you have the appropriate equipment and that it is set up correctly, there are some basic guidelines that you should follow in order to minimise the risks from the use of DSE:

• Break up long spells of DSE work with rest breaks or changes of activity for at least 5 minutes every hour.
• Avoid awkward, static postures by regularly changing position.
• Getting up and moving or doing stretching exercises.
• Avoiding eye fatigue by changing focus or blinking from time to time.

Above we mentioned the importance of separating your work area from the rest of your house. This isn’t just important in terms of physical safety but also in terms of your mental welfare. It is crucial to establish a clear boundary between your working life and your time off work in any circumstances, but particularly when you are working from home long term.

Start and finish times

Whether you have set shift times or a more relaxed working arrangement such as flexi times, it is crucial that you set yourself clear start and finish times each day and that you stick to them. This is a basic step to stop yourself from overworking. Make sure that you close everything down ahead of your finishing time and move away from your work area as soon as you are off the clock. This helps to create a psychological delineation between work and leisure even though you are in the same location.

You should also ensure that you adhere to the Working Time Regulations by:

• Resting for at least eleven hours between shifts.
• Working no more than forty-eight hours per week (we would recommend much less than this whilst at home, e.g. not exceeding your contracted working week).

Rest breaks

In addition to taking DSE breaks of at least five minutes every hour, you should ensure that you take your proper rest breaks. The legal minimum is one uninterrupted twenty-minute break if you work over six hours, though some employers allow for more or longer breaks.

You should:

• Stand up and walk away from your workstation for your break.
• Eat during your break where possible, rather than at your workstation.
• Go outside in order to get fresh air and sunlight, whether on your main break or during your shorter DSE breaks.

Routine

Establishing a routine whilst working is as important as taking your proper breaks. This helps to ensure you can keep track of time and minimise any feeling of disconnect from reality.

As well as establishing clear start and finish times, a clear routine can include setting alarms or timers to alert you when to take breaks, scheduling contact with others through calls and virtual meetings, and so on. It often helps to try to incorporate elements from the old routine to help with the transition. Resist the urge to stay up binging on Netflix until 4 in the morning and try to keep to a regular sleep cycle. Get showered and dressed, even if you aren’t going out. Stick to regular mealtimes. Set out your day and week in advance and stick to your plans. Try to incorporate some form of physical activity, but make sure you have a good balance of essential activities and recreational activities.

Whilst in social isolation, it is important wherever possible to maintain contact with friends, family and colleagues wherever possible. This will help to minimise the mental health effects of long-term isolation and maintain a link to the wider world and your life. There are a variety of options to do this besides telephone calls. Most people will have access to the internet through a smart phone if not a laptop or PC, and therefore will be able to use WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger, Zoom or other means to do this.

Workers without the internet are unlikely to be working from home, unless supplied with a dongle from their employer. In this instance, you should ensure that you follow your employer’s policy on acceptable use of their systems if using the internet on a work laptop or Surface Pro.

Keeping in touch arrangements

Your manager should ensure that they keep in regular contact with you. This should be more about checking that you are doing okay and if you need any support than to talk about work performance, though as you are still working that will obviously need to be discussed. If you feel that your manager is not keeping in touch with you frequently enough, raise your concerns with them in the first instance and if necessary, seek support from a union representative.

Although it is outside the scope of this guidance, if you have any concerns with over-monitoring, you should speak to a union representative in the first instance.

Interaction with work colleagues

When working from home, one of the main things missing from the office is regular conversation and interaction. Email often falls short as a substitute for this, which is where instant messaging services come in handy.

If your workplace has Microsoft Teams or Google Hangouts, you should look at setting up a chat with your team mates so that you can talk about non-work topics such as the television the night before, etc. If your workplace doesn’t have anything like this, then it is worth looking at setting up a shared workplace on Slack as a way to keep in touch and keep the conversation going.

You should also look at video conferencing not just for formal work matters like team meetings, but perhaps also for social interaction. All of this will help minimise the feelings of isolation and being cut off from others.

The measures outlined in this guide are aimed at ensuring that you have a clear distinction between work and your home life, that you have a sense of routine and that you are still able to interact with others despite isolation and distancing.

However, these are not a guaranteed cure all and it is still important to take what steps you can both to look after yourself and to recognise when you need help.

Physical health and exercise

The benefits of physical exercise include improving your health and lifting your mood. The capacity of individuals for exercise will vary greatly, but if you can do even something as simple as going for a walk or some low impact exercise in the home there is a benefit to it. More broadly, you should pay attention to your physical health beyond the issue of the coronavirus. If you suffer from illness or injury, you should ensure that you seek medical advice where appropriate and take whatever measures are necessary to allow you to recover. If you suffer anything serious, you should call 999 and seek medical assistance.

Stress and mental health

Stress can manifest itself in various ways. These include:

• mood swings
• being withdrawn
• loss of motivation, commitment and confidence
• increased emotional reactions – being more tearful, sensitive or aggressive Stress is the result of too much pressure.

There are six main areas that can lead to work-related stress if they are not managed properly. These are: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. For example, if you:

• are not able to cope with the demands of your job
• are unable to control the way you do your work
• don’t receive enough information and support
• are having trouble with relationships at work, or are being bullied
• don’t fully understand your role and responsibilities
• are not engaged when a business is undergoing change Stress affects people differently – what stresses one person may not affect another.

Factors like skills and experience, age or disability may all affect whether an employee can cope.

If you feel that you are suffering from stress, you should contact your GP. If the stress is a result of your work, you should speak to your manager about this and see what measures can be put in place to reduce stress. Your union representative can support you in this

During this uncertain time, all of us are facing challenges. For some autistic people these challenges may be exacerbating issues that they were already dealing with. Below are a few ideas autistic people and those caring for autistic people might want to consider at this time.

Routine

Many autistic people thrive on routine. Therefore, when your normal routine is impossible, it is important to establish a new routine as quickly as possible, in line with the guidance under structure.

If you are caring for a younger autistic person, or someone who needs more support, visual timetables can be helpful with keeping a routine. You can work out the timetable together to help them have some sense of control during this turmoil, which can help alleviate some anxiety. You could also have alarms set to break up the day, mirroring the school bells. Don’t forget, it can take time for autistic people to switch from one task to another, so make sure you give them advanced warning before the switch and time to settle afterwards. It may also help if the child wears their school uniform as they normally would.

Staying informed

There is a fine balance to be struck between staying aware of what is going on and becoming anxious and depressed by the enormity of everything. You will know yourself where your triggers lie in this respect, so do not be afraid to set boundaries around those areas. If the news is too much for you to cope with, consider asking a friend to relay any important information to you, so you don’t need to watch/read it all yourself to get the one or two pieces of information you need. If certain posts on social media distress you, you don’t necessarily need to completely avoid social media, but do consider unsubscribing from some pages that frequently post content that upsets you, or hiding posts from friends that have a similar effect.

This is a difficult area to balance, as social media will likely play a large role in combating feelings of isolation during social distancing. If broader social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are too much for you, you might still be able to stay in touch with people through more direct apps such as Skype, Discord, WhatsApp, etc.

If you are caring for an autistic person, resist the temptation to hide what is going on from them completely. Understanding the reasons for the situation can make the situation itself easier to deal with. There are several social stories available for free on the internet to help you explain coronavirus in a way that is accessible for the individual. Try to avoid speculation, as it may lead to catastrophising. No doubt there will be questions that will be difficult to answer, but an honest “I don’t know yet” is better than trying to guess. Reinforce what they can do with the information they have, and promise to keep them updated as much as you can.

Diet

If you or the person you care for has a specific dietary requirement, whether due to physical allergies or intolerances or due to sensory or control factors, then try to make sure you have enough in for 10-14 days and replenish your supplies every time you go shopping. Obviously, don’t go overboard, but this is an already stressful time, so don’t add to it by making mealtimes a battle ground. If it comes to it that you can’t find any of the specific items you need, try asking friends and local support groups for help. If all else fails, be prepared to be creative, and remember to ask for help if you need it. Support groups exist to help and advise people, don’t be afraid to use them.

Mental Health

If you are caring for someone who is non-verbal or who has limited speech to bear in mind the golden rule that behaviour is communication. If their behaviour changes, try to understand what they are trying to tell you. It’s not always easy to decipher the behavioural clues they are giving us, but patience and perseverance will pay off eventually.

A lot of autistic people will be displaying a lot more “obviously autistic” behaviour than normal, such as stimming, echolalia, etc. This is a coping mechanism, and if it isn’t harming them or anyone around them, you should leave them to it. If it is harmful, try to substitute that coping mechanism for something safer. For example, if they are picking at their face due to anxiety, try giving them a piece of cloth or something else to pick at. Again, support group

If you are a carer, whether for a young child, an elderly relative or a disabled or vulnerable person, it can be difficult to balance that against the demands of your job. Your employer should make allowances to support that in any instance, and your union representative can support you with that. However, during this crisis many more people may find themselves with caring responsibility who didn’t have them before, and it can be harder to separate that role and your job when working from home.

Flexible working

You have the right to request flexible working if you are trying to balance your job and caring responsibilities, and most civil service employers have policies which support this. Flexible working could include changing your shift pattern, reducing or compressing your hours, job sharing, or flexi time. Due to the unprecedented nature of the current crisis, we would expect employers to be extra flexible with carers and particularly those who are working from home. If there are any difficulties with this, you should raise them with your manager and seek the support of a trade union representative.

Reasonable adjustments

Alongside flexible working, there may be other adjustments that you require to enable you to do your job whilst undertaking your caring responsibilities. These include reduced targets, increased breaks, or other measures. What adjustments suit your situation will be unique to your circumstances and you should discuss with your manager any adjustments that you feel would benefit you. You may also consider agreeing a carers passport which would ensure that you are able to carry over any adjustments in the event of a change of team, manager or job. A trade union representative can help you with this.

For many of us, home is a place of safety in times of difficulty, stress and uncertainty. But for those who experience domestic violence, home is often a place of violence, danger and fear. According to government figures, an estimated 1.6 million women and 786,000 men in England and Wales experienced domestic abuse last year, which is a staggering figure.

There is a serious risk that under self-isolation, perpetrators of abuse will be able to restrict their partner’s freedom and threaten their and their children’s safety. To compound the problem, this is all happening at a time when support services are struggling to function due to the same government guidelines and rules on top of an existing funding crisis.

Many abusers use isolation as a way of controlling their partner. Isolation keeps the suspicions of others at bay, reduces the opportunities for someone to seek help, and may also increase cases of physical violence where there is less chance of another person noticing bruises or other injuries. Further, domestic abuse does not always leave a physical mark. Controlling and coercive behaviour is an act or pattern of acts that can include threats, intimidation or other abuse designed to make PCS HQ – 160 Falcon Road, London a person dependent by isolating them from support, depriving them of independence and regulating their everyday behaviour.

Where to get help

If you are at risk of domestic abuse, we would encourage you to telephone the Police on 999 if it is an emergency and on 101 if you wish to report an incident.

There are a number of helplines and organisations that may be able to help you. For example:

• Women’s Aid | 0808 200 0247 (24 hours) and Live Chat
• Man Kind Initiative | 01823 334244 (weekdays 10am to 4pm)
• Refuge | 0808 200 0247 (24 hours)
• National Domestic Violence helpline | 0808 200 0247 (24 hours)
• National LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline | 0800 999 5428
• The National Centre of Domestic Violence | 0800 970 2070 – The NCDV provides a free emergency injunction service to survivors of domestic violence regardless of their financial circumstances, race, gender or sexual orientation
• Rape Crisis | 0808 802 9999
• EVAW (End Violence Against Women) | 020 3735 8219
• Respect helpline (for anyone worried about their own behaviour): | 0808 802 0321

How to help

• Educate yourself on how to recognise abuse (in yourself and others)
• Learn how to help someone who is experiencing domestic abuse
• Consider donating (goods or money) to support services, for example your local Women’s Aid service or Refuge shelter or becoming a member of support charities
• Work to raise awareness of the issues, via social media or otherwise
• If you are worried about a friend or family member - check in with them with a telephone call, text message or video call where possible. They may not be ready to talk, but it

Mutual aid is the voluntary and reciprocal exchange of resources and services within a community, for the benefit of all and organised outside of the formal frameworks of charities, NGOs and government. Within the current crisis, communities across the country (and the world) are engaging in mutual aid to support one another and ensure that those who are forced to self-isolate can still access food and other essentials.

Whilst this is not strictly related to work, being aware of local groups will allow you to access support if you need it and to offer support to others if you are able. This is hugely beneficial to everyone and reflects the collective ethos of solidarity that led to the foundation of the trade union movement.

• You can find a full list of local mutual aid groups online here.
• Advice on how to interact with others when receiving or providing mutual aid (including safeguarding and personal safety) is available as part of the FAQs here.
• Comprehensive guidance on setting up a mutual aid network in your neighbourhood can be found here.

Please be aware that these groups are not affiliated to PCS or to any other formal organisation. They are simply volunteers working together to coordinate care efforts for people who are self isolating, especially if they are part of a more at-risk demographic.

If you wish to volunteer to help but prefer to do so through more formal existing structures, most local councils operate a volunteer hub. The government’s guidance on helping out and links to volunteer opportunities can be found here.

For PCS union guidance, visit your PCS employer group page on the PCS website in the first instance or the PCS Home Office Merseyside Branch Coronavirus page. These should be updated regularly with advice and information about the current situation.

Public Health England guidance on:

• Social distancing
• Households with possible coronavirus infection

Health and Safety Executive guidance on:

• Home working
• Training, supervision and monitoring of lone workers
• Stress at work

NHS guidance on:

Easy low impact exercises (including exercising at home)

Autism

The National Autistic Society website.

Age UK guidance on:

Juggling being a carer with work

Carers UK guidance on:

The carers passport scheme

Women

The Women’s Aid UK website.