Mental Health First Aid in the Workplace

Every year 1 in 5 Canadians will experience mental illness.  That means that every day, millions of Canadian workers go to work while experiencing mental health problems.

Mental illness is the leading cause of sickness, absence, and long-term work incapacity in Canada.  More workplaces are realizing the importance of managing mental health at work and recognizing the benefits of creating mentally healthy workplaces.  Bethany is no exception.

Mental Health First Aid® can help.

Mental Health First Aid offers early-intervention education for employees that can help to increase their mental health literacy, and teaches the practical skills needed to support a co-worker or another adult experiencing a mental health problem.  Increasing mental health literacy within the workplace, through targeted training like this, has shown to increase organizational and employee resilience.

What is Mental Health First Aid?

Mental health first aid is the initial help offered to someone who is experiencing a mental health problem or a mental health crisis, until the appropriate professional help is received, or the crisis resolves itself.

Mental Health First Aid (MHFA™)

Training equips people with the knowledge and confidence to approach or respond to someone who may need information or support.  The impact of that first supportive conversation can be profound.

Building Capacity within Bethany.

As part of the Guarding Minds @ Work Project, Bethany has trained over 55 Mental Health First Aiders from across the organization.  Each of these individuals are recognizable by a special blue-green lanyard that says – “I am a Mental Health First Aider”/ We Care.  If you or someone you know needs information regarding mental health resources, and/or a listening ear, reach out – help is always available because We Care.

Lesley MacKinnon MHFA

Manager, Safety

Lesley.Mackinnon@BethanySeniors.comFor more information, please contact:

Lesley MacKinnon
Manager, Safety
Lesley.Mackinnon@BethanySeniors.com

Or

Site OHS Committee Chair or Representative

The STOP and GO Technique:

Stop — whatever you are doing, it can wait
Think — give your undivided attention
Observe — cues and acknowledge the message
Plan — when and how to resume care

All Bethany staff participate in highly specialized training courses including Gentle Persuasive Approaches in Dementia Care (GPA), and P.I.E.C.E.S., which is a holistic care partner-directed model.

LifeWorks supports employee health and well-being.

Bethany employees have access to a wide range of resources such as:

• LifeWorks Blog
• Webinars and Events
• 24/7 Specialist Counselling

Bethanycaresociety.lifeworks.com
username: bcs
Password: eap
Phone: 1-877-207-8833
Phone App: LifeWorks WorkAngel

Do you turn to food when you feel stressed out by work, family, or social obligations? You’re not alone! Beverly Hills psychotherapist Allison Cohen, MA, MFT, suggests that both negative and positive events can cause stress resulting in “eating our feelings”.

You probably have know what foods we crave when tensions rise foods that mentally bring us back to a more carefree time of childhood, and that are often high in sugar, fat, or both.

However, sometimes you eat to satisfy true hunger, to fulfill a physical need to eat and survive. At other times, such as when you feel anxious, you eat because you believe it will provide you with some relief and feed the hunger. That’s a psychological or emotional reason for eating that has nothing to do
with actual hunger.

Five steps that can help you manage stress and avoid stress eating:

• Know your stressors. Identify the circumstances and emotions that lead you to stress eat.
• Exercise to reduce stress. If you’re physically fit, you’re more resistant to the effects of stress.
• Reach out for help. Talk out your feelings and your unhealthy responses to stress with close friends and family who can give you the support you need to get through tough situations.
• Develop a practice of mindfulness. Meditation, yoga, tai chi and other mindfulness-based exercises and programs help calm the mind and the body.
• Learn intuitive eating, a practice developed by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch back in the 1990s. Intuitive eating means paying more attention to the natural, internal hunger and fullness signals sent between your brain and your gut.

“Eating intuitively empowers you to learn more about how your body feels when you are truly hungry versus hungry due to stress or in need of emotional comfort,” Allison explains. “When you understand and pay attention to the ‘why’s’ of what your body is craving, you’ll have a better understanding of how to manage your stress eating.”

For more information, please contact:

Lesley MacKinnon
Manager, Safety
Lesley.Mackinnon@BethanySeniors.com

Or

Site OHS Committee Chair or Representative

ADDITIONAL LINKS AND RESOURCES

Emotional Eating

How Do I Stop Stress Eating?

Take the Test – Are You An Emotional Eater?

Emotional Eating: Building Conscious Eating Habits – Episode Four (Video) -You will need to login to Lifeworks to access this video

What is Intuitive Eating?LifeWorks supports employee health and well-being.

Bethany employees have access to a wide range of resources such as:

• LifeWorks Blog
• Webinars and Events
• 24/7 Specialist Counselling

Bethanycaresociety.lifeworks.com
username: bcs
Password: eap
Phone: 1-877-207-8833
Phone App: LifeWorks WorkAngel

“People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring people together. “ – Michelle Obama

On February 23, 2022, organizations across Canada will be celebrating Pink Shirt Day. Pink Shirt Day grew out of a small act of kindness in 2007, when two classmates bought and distributed 50 pink shirts after a student in their school was bullied for wearing a pink shirt.

This year’s theme is “Lift Each Other Up” a simple but powerful message encouraging us to look beyond our differences and celebrate the things that make each one of us unique. At Bethany, our key values focus on being caring, showing respect, acting responsibly and embracing our diversity. Pink Shirt Day is a great way to action those values for creating caring communities.

Today our diversity is becoming more visible than ever before as people continue to embrace their cultures, identities, and true selves in more open and direct ways. This makes the need to Lift Each Other Up and have greater acceptance, respect, and inclusion for everyone so important.

So, what can each of us do to Lift Each Other Up?

• Know that it starts with you. Look at yourself and your current work environment to understand how you’re being perceived and/or how
  others are being treated.
• Model and support ethical, respectful behavior in your daily interactions. In order to receive respect, you must give it.
• Call out bad behaviour. If someone does something that you feel is disrespectful, speak to that person, and if you feel unsafe in doing so
  speak to your manager or HR.
• If you see something, say something. While you may not be the target, you have a responsibility to be a Supportive Bystander. Don’t enable bad behaviour by staying silent.

On February 23rd, how will you lift someone up? Will you do something for someone in your life, someone you work with, or yourself? Let’s show our support by wearing pink shirts.For more information, please contact:

Lesley MacKinnon
Manager, Safety
Lesley.Mackinnon@BethanySeniors.com

Or

Site OHS Committee Chair or Representative

ADDITIONAL LINKS AND RESOURCES

How to Support Someone Struggling with Their Mental Health

Helping Each Other Through Trauma

Balance, Burnout and the search for CentreLifeWorks supports employee health and well-being.

Bethany employees have access to a wide range of resources such as:

• LifeWorks Blog
• Webinars and Events
• 24/7 Specialist Counselling

Bethanycaresociety.lifeworks.com
username: bcs
Password: eap
Phone: 1-877-207-8833
Phone App: LifeWorks WorkAngel

Our Bethany values inspire, empower, and guide our daily interactions with one another, which are foundational to creating a respectful workplace. We must be aware of how our own actions impact others, while also understanding their perspectives as well. We each play a role in building a more respectful workplace by being more self-aware of our reactions and triggers when conflict occurs.

What is self-awareness?
Being self-aware is the ability to notice your feelings, your reactions, your habits, your behaviours and your thoughts. It helps you understand how people see you, your opinions and your reactions to others in the moment. We can practice self-awareness by thinking about how might our actions have impacted others or caused some sort of conflict, and how we can do things differently in the future.

Applying the three skills below can help develop better self-awareness and improve our relationships both at work and in our personal lives.

• Self-reflection – recognizing your emotions, triggers and biases, be curious about the views of others
• Self-regulation – manage your emotions so they don’t impact you or others in a negative way
• Self-expression – manage your actions, including your choice in words, body language and tone

Developing self-awareness takes practice

At first, it might feel strange and vulnerable to reflect on the role we’ve played in a conflict or negative situation. The goal of developing self-awareness is to be able to respectfully handle conflict when it happens or soon afterwards by taking responsibility for our part in the conflict, versus avoiding the situation and letting things build-up to the point of damaging a relationship.

Always take care of yourself

If you find you struggle building your self-awareness, don’t forget to practice self-compassion. Be kind to yourself; no one is perfect. Self-compassion and building resiliency can help us cope with the ups and downs of work and one’s home life. Our personal well-being impacts our interactions with others, our ability to cope with the demands of work, and how we deal with conflicts that arise in the future.For more information, please contact:

Lesley MacKinnon
Manager, Safety
Lesley.Mackinnon@BethanySeniors.com

Or

Site OHS Committee Chair or Representative

ADDITIONAL LINKS AND RESOURCES

Managing Conflict at Work

Dealing with Conflict in the Workplace

Diversity at Work (to read article, login to Lifeworks)

Managing Conflict in the Workplace (to read article, login to Lifeworks)

LifeWorks supports employee health and well-being.

Bethany employees have access to a wide range of resources such as:

• LifeWorks Blog
• Webinars and Events
• 24/7 Specialist Counselling

Bethanycaresociety.lifeworks.com
username: bcs
Password: eap
Phone: 1-877-207-8833
Phone App: LifeWorks WorkAngel