Award-winning Walsall firm puts best foot forward for mental health charity

ACCOUNTANCY specialists have been putting their best feet forward in a bid to Move for Mind.

Employees from Walsall-based Unico 3 Limited wanted to do something to raise money for the mental health charity after seeing the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The award-winning family-run firm, which has doubled in size during the crisis, provides outsourced expertise in accountancy, administration and compliance for logistics companies including support for self-employed delivery drivers. 

Run by mother and daughter duo, Jane Barker and Rebecca Dean, the pair decided to embark on the challenge of walking over 1,000 miles in 30 days along with members of their team.

Together they raised a staggering £2,430 for the leading mental health charity, Mind.

Rebecca said: “Unico has seen the impact of mental health over the past year, the pandemic seems to affected everyone in different ways, some more severely than others.

“We have had a strong focus on wellbeing for employees and customers alike, with an open policy, always here to talk.

“We wanted to raise awareness to help more people realise it’s ok to not be ok.

“We chose Mind because of the work they have been doing throughout the pandemic and lockdowns as mental health is a more prominent issue now than ever.”

Unico 3 Limited expanded its team from seven to 18 to cope with demand and business growth since the UK went into lockdown, and the firm prides itself on being there for its team and customers.

The pandemic meant they had to come up with new ways to support clients and immediately set staff up to work from home, extended their opening hours, introduced new services while offering free advice about grants and furlough claims.

Rebecca, 28 added:  “The whole team has been involved in the Move For Mind Challenge. It gave us a way to do something together without being together and we encouraged each other to get the miles in and record our walks.

“It was great to do something for such a worthy cause during such difficult times.

“We’ve also been reaching out to our local business community to offer free support during this time too, the grants and furlough and loans aren’t always straight forward and we felt it was important that businesses are able to access the support.”

For more information about Unico 3, visit www.unico3.co.uk  or to make a donation to Mind, click here. Unico 3 Fundraising Page (blackbaud-sites.com)