World Mental Health Day 2025: Bridging the gap in crisis mental health support

How Employee Assistance Programmes help fill the gap

In the UK, Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) are playing a bigger role in bridging this gap. While they were originally created to offer confidential workplace support, many now also provide:

• Critical Incident Support – helping people process traumatic events soon after they happen. 
• Trauma Response Services – offering specialist counselling for individuals and teams recovering from distressing experiences.

These services have become a key part of how organisations and communities respond to major incidents. Whether it’s following a large-scale incident or a public health emergency, EAP providers can quickly mobilise specialist counsellors and trauma practitioners to support employees, volunteers, and the wider community. 

This proactive approach has real benefits:

• It means those affected by trauma receive timely psychological support – a key step in reducing long-term mental health impacts. 
• It helps frontline staff, emergency responders, and key workers stay resilient and avoid burnout or secondary trauma.
• Finally, EAPs play a role in broader recovery by giving communities the tools to cope, adapt, and rebuild after a crisis.

Three priorities for action

This year’s theme for World Mental Health Day highlights three key priorities: 

• Urging governments, organisations, and service providers to keep mental health front of mind during times of crisis.
• Calling for sustained investment in mental health services – especially across diverse cultures and in regions with limited infrastructure.
• Emphasising the need to embed mental health and psychosocial support into every emergency response, recognising that recovery goes beyond physical safety to include emotional and psychological wellbeing.

EAPs and crisis care

EAPs are already showing what this integrated approach looks like in practice. From providing rapid-response counselling after public incidents to delivering tailored trauma programmes for emergency workers, EAPs ensure mental health support is a core part of crisis management. 

Their work delivers a clear message for all sectors: mental health support saves lives and strengthens communities. 

Looking ahead

World Mental Health Day 2025 gives us a moment to reflect on what we’ve learned – and to keep expanding access to mental health services for those affected by emergencies.  

In the UK and across the world, ensuring prompt, culturally sensitive, and professionally delivered support remains an ethical imperative and a vital foundation for recovery, resilience, and hope.