Funded by the Australian Treasury, Counting on U research has found that the training has an important role to play in supporting the mental health of small business owners and their advisers…
It was against the backdrop of uncertainty and chaos from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and with generous funding from partners such as the Australian Treasury, that Counting on U (CoU) was initiated by Professor George Tanewski (Department of Accounting) and Professor Andrew Noblet (Department of Management) as a Deakin Business School research and professional development program. Thanks to funding and in collaboration with industry stakeholders, Deakin were able to design a first-of-its-kind program that takes an integrated approach to supporting client mental health by combining client Relationship Building Training (RBT) with Mental Health First Aid® (MHFA™) training.
The aim was to help business advisers (BAs) working with small business clients in Australia to support the financial and mental wellbeing of their clients, who often work in isolation and can experience significant financial hardship.
With the support of accounting professional bodies including CAANZ, CPA, IPA and ICB, over 80,000 invitations were sent to eligible members to register for the pilot CoU research program. Between Feb 2021 and Nov 2022, Deakin received 3,448 registrations from potential participants from across Australia.
Most participants were accountants (64%), working as sole practitioners (66%) and living in major urban areas (65%). Training was delivered online via virtual classrooms and led by an accredited MHFATM instructor.
The following research findings are relating to CoU participants who were part of the Treasury-funded program.
Post Training
Participants were surveyed 1-month post-training and the analysis of pre versus post training survey responses reveal positive trends that we expect to continue over time as client relationships grow and provide more opportunities for BAs to apply their skills.
Not only have there been promising improvements in the BAs’ understanding of common mental health conditions (MHCs) (59%) and their confidence to provide MHFATM to their clients (48%), but also in the mental wellbeing of BAs themselves who are often also small-business owners, with a 15% decrease in their own psychological distress and a 6% improvement in their quality of life in terms of mental health.
Their SME clients reported greater improvements to their financial distress and in the quality of their relationship with their BA, in cases where their BA underwent RBT and MHFATM training.
Course content and trainer competencies received consistently high ratings from participants. Team CoU have since been updating and strengthening Counting on U training modules and delivery based on participant and trainer feedback and the changing business climate.
Future direction
The overwhelming success of the Treasury-funded program resulted in Deakin University expanding CoU into a self-sustained, fee-paying program in 2023, as part of the program’s vision to make this valuable training accessible to Australian & New Zealand BAs and to continue supporting their SME clients.
We also put forth program and industry recommendations for the Australian Treasury’s Small Business Wellbeing team to consider, with key points including funding free training through Counting on U, collaborating on establishing CoU as an industry standard for finance professionals and incorporating CoU into relevant higher education degrees.
Read the summary report here.