Be Mindful Workplace will help disabled individuals to gain employment, backed by funding for the project from SBRI Healthcare in partnership with the NHS Health Innovation Network
Digital health pioneer Wellmind Health is developing an innovative digital mental health programme to help disabled individuals gain employment, in partnership with Evenbreak, the leading disability job board for disabled people, and Health Innovation Yorkshire and & Humber (HIYH). Be Mindful Workplace aims to help break down the unique barriers people with disabilities face to finding jobs and has been awarded funding in the SBRI Healthcare 'Competition 27 – Work-related digital innovations for individuals with poor mental health'.
Wellmind Health's Be Mindful is a digital Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programme, an approach proven to help with anxiety, depression, and stress, which make job-seeking even more challenging. To date it has helped over 14,000 individuals to significantly improve their mental health, spanning primary care, mental health, occupational health, and community-based settings. Co-creating Be Mindful Workplace to address the specific needs of disabled users with people with lived experience of disability, clinicians and employers will ensure it meets users' needs and the highest accessibility standards.
Individuals with disabilities including physical, developmental, intellectual, neurological, sensory and Neurodivergence face significant obstacles to employment and are disproportionately underrepresented in the workforce, with 54.2% of disabled individuals employed in 2024, compared to 82% among non-disabled individuals. They often experience significant mental health challenges, exacerbated by social isolation, reduced confidence and heightened anxiety.
"We are thrilled to be working with Evenbreak and HIYH. This timely initiative aligns with the government's focus on supporting disabled individuals back into employment. By addressing the unique mental health challenges faced by disabled job seekers, we aim to empower them to pursue and sustain meaningful employment. This collaboration underscores our commitment to creating accessible, evidence-based solutions that make a real difference in people's lives. Together, we can help break down barriers and open new opportunities for disabled individuals."
The project will see Evenbreak recruit a diverse group of individuals with a range of disabilities into a steering group to guide design and outcomes in a real-world evaluation to test effectiveness.
"At Evenbreak, we are passionate about removing the barriers disabled people face in accessing meaningful employment. Mental health challenges can be both a consequence of exclusion from the workforce and a barrier to entering it. This partnership with Wellmind Health and HIYH means we can co-create support that is shaped by disabled people themselves. Together, we are ensuring the solution is genuinely inclusive, enabling, and designed to make a tangible difference."
The programme will also be co-designed by HIYH who will play a key role in embedding patient and public involvement. Focusing on each stage of the employment journey, HIYH will gather actionable insights to refine the intervention, ensuring it meets real needs and supports best practices for employers.
The project is designed not only to open doors to mental health support for disabled individuals, helping users build confidence and independence to pursue employment. It will also provide an accessible, scalable programme to support the NHS's mental health services and workforce and create a model for other underserved groups.
About Wellmind Health
Wellmind Health has pioneered Digital Treatments as a Service (DTaaS) for over a decade. The company’s clinical-grade, evidence-based programmes have supported over 150,000 people to better manage their mental health, pain management and addiction recovery. Their unique scalable enterprise platform provides clinicians and commissioners with real-time access to patient and clinical data through a secure management portal. The Wellmind Workplace service attends to the unmet needs of employees, job seekers and employers, supporting people struggling with mental health and chronic pain to enter the workforce or stay in work and thrive. Wellmind Health is committed to delivering high-quality, data-driven digital interventions that create a lasting impact on individuals, healthcare services, companies, and society.
About Evenbreak
Evenbreak is an award-winning global specialist job board run entirely by and for people who are deaf, disabled, neurodivergent or living with a long-term health condition. We support organisations who put talent first through training and consultancy and access to talented candidates via the job board. Evenbreak also hosts the Include Now podcast. Include Now is a call to action, inspiring employers and listeners to join the movement for meaningful change in the workplace. Through this podcast, Evenbreak is elevating the conversation on disability inclusion, enabling individuals and organisations to create accessible and equitable environments globally.
About SBRI Healthcare
SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) Healthcare provides funding and support to innovators to develop solutions that tackle existing unmet needs faced by the NHS. The programme aims to improve patient care, increase efficiency in the NHS, and support the UK economy. The programme provides funding and support to early-stage projects enabling testing for business feasibility and technology development, as well as to more mature products to support real world implementation studies. SBRI Healthcare is funded by the AAC and delivered in partnership with the Health Innovation Network.
This work was commissioned and funded by SBRI Healthcare. SBRI Healthcare is an Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) initiative, in partnership with the Health Innovation Network. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SBRI Healthcare or its stakeholders
