Canadian (Veterans) PTSD App reviewed

May 6, 2013 By

PTSD Coach CanadaWe don’t typ­i­cally men­tion spe­cific apps on the Healthy Work­places blog, but this pos­i­tive event invites men­tion because it is a Cana­dian gov­ern­ment mHealth (mobile health) initiative.

Vet­er­ans Affairs Canada (VAC) has just released the smart­phone app “PTSD Coach Canada.” (Unfor­tu­nate tim­ing in the app name, given the change to the diag­nos­tic title in the new released DSM-5).

From the Google Play store:

Together with pro­fes­sional treat­ment, PTSD Coach Canada pro­vides you depend­able resources you can trust. If you have, or think you might have PTSD, this app is for you. Fam­ily and friends can also learn from this app. PTSD Coach Canada pro­vides you with infor­ma­tion and self-help tools based on research.

The PTSD Coach Canada app can help you learn about and man­age symp­toms that can occur after trauma. Fea­tures include:

* Reli­able infor­ma­tion on PTSD and treat­ments that work

* Tools for screen­ing and track­ing your symptoms

* Con­ve­nient, easy-to-use tools to help you han­dle stress symptoms

* Direct links to sup­port and help

* Always with you when you need it

First, we very much like that this app sig­nals recog­ni­tion from the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment of men­tal health issues, and tech­no­log­i­cal advances that are chang­ing the nature of client/treatment inter­ac­tions (i.e. mHealth).

From a design stand­point we like that is light on size (for fast first-time install), and has auto-updates that will com­mu­ni­cate with your device as changes are announced and/or made.

We also like that is avail­able on the iPhone and Android devices, but it is not iPad com­pat­i­ble, which excludes a large pop­u­la­tion of users. And con­sid­er­ing that many vet­er­ans are senior now with chal­lenged eye­sight, the small app screen of a smart­phone seems prohibitive.

From a con­tent perspective:

  • We like that the usage dis­claimer is com­pre­hen­sive and warns against self-diagnosis. But we don’t like that “dis­claimer” and “setup” are rolled into one. Upon first use we were not pre­pared for set­ting things up, and had expected a menu of choices or some kind of break to note the app was switch­ing gears to a new topic.
  • That said, we like that the setup notes that you need to imme­di­ately deter­mine friends, loved ones and health pro­fes­sion­als who can help when stressed, pic­tures you find com­fort­ing or funny, and songs that are relax­ing. The instruc­tions to do all of this though, are a bit con­fus­ing and rely upon a lot of user tech knowl­edge (min­i­mal knowl­edge, but knowl­edge just the same).
  • We def­i­nitely not fond of the dark grey back­ground and white con­trast­ing text colour pal­lette. That is kind of depressing.
  • We like the audio option for lis­ten­ing to each sec­tion (e.g. “What is PTSD?”)
  • We don’t like the typo­graph­i­cal errors
  • We very much like the self-assessment mea­sure that will pro­vide ongo­ing stor­age and recall of the user’s self-assessment results, and email a reminder when the assess­ment is due. This allows for track­ing over time that could, poten­tially, influ­ence treatment-seeking, progress report­ing, iden­ti­fy­ing set­backs, etc.
  • We don’t like the place­ment of “Sched­ule Assess­ments” as a but­ton on the menu that is pre­sented after the orig­i­nal assess­ment. That orig­i­nal assess­ment asks if you want to do the sched­ul­ing and gives you options, and then this same but­ton ask the same information.
  • We find the tools for man­ag­ing PTSD of great vari­ety, easy to use, and quite inter­est­ing. For exam­ple, pos­i­tive imagery using your pre-selected calm­ing image and audio. Bet­ter still, these tools are cat­e­go­rized accord­ing to dif­fer­ent symp­toms (e.g. worried/anxious man­age­ment tools ver­sus anger man­age­ment tools).
  • We very much like the under­ly­ing treat­ment mes­sage which sup­ports cog­ni­tive behav­ioural type ther­a­pies, some­times com­bined with medication(s).
  • And we very much like the “Find Sup­port” area that uti­lizes the user’s own iden­ti­fied sup­port net­work as well as assis­tance con­tact­ing the Vet­er­ans Affairs Assis­tance Line.
  • We ques­tion, over­all, whether this app will be use­ful for the pub­lic, con­sid­er­ing the sup­port num­bers pro­vided. How­ever all other sec­tions are applic­a­ble. And there is an option men­tioned for non-Veterans con­tact assis­tance (9–1-1 but under­stand­ably noth­ing more specific).

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How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

Free webinar! Action Guide re: Psychological Health and Safety

March 11, 2013 By

From source: http://www.ccohs.ca/products/webinars/psych/

Our col­leagues Drs. Merv Gilbert and Dan Bilsker, are offer­ing a free webi­nar tar­get­ing employ­ers who are imple­ment­ing the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety Stan­dard released by the Men­tal Health Com­mis­sion of Canada.

Accord­ing to the webi­nar description:

This pre­sen­ta­tion by the guide authors will include a brief descrip­tion of the under­ly­ing research and frame­work, an overview of the con­tents, and rec­om­men­da­tions for appli­ca­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion. Orga­ni­za­tions that imple­ment some of the rec­om­mended actions will be encour­aged to share their expe­ri­ences in order to inspire and instruct others.

Note: The webi­nar was orig­i­nally pre­sented May 8, 2012, as part of North Amer­i­can Occu­pa­tional Safety and Health Week 2012.
 

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How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

Psychological Health and Safety: An Action Guide for Employers

March 11, 2013 By

From the source: http://www.sfu.ca/carmha/publications/psychological-health-safety-guide-for-employers.html

As the bur­den of work­place men­tal health prob­lems on the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors in Canada increases, the man­age­ment of work­place men­tal health issues will be of increas­ing impor­tance. Yet, strate­gies for the assess­ment, pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of men­tal health prob­lems in the work­place are under­de­vel­oped and underused.

In order to help rem­edy this the Work­force Advi­sory Com­mit­tee of the Men­tal Health Com­mis­sion of Canada asked CARMHA to exam­ine the rel­e­vant sci­en­tific and ‘grey’ lit­er­a­ture on approaches to improv­ing the men­tal health of employ­ees and cre­ate prac­ti­cal resource for employ­ers. The aim of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety: An Action Guide for Employ­ers, is to help employ­ers to cre­ate a psy­cho­log­i­cally healthy work­place, one that sup­ports the psy­cho­log­i­cal health of employ­ees in a man­ner that also fur­thers the goals of the orga­ni­za­tion. Pro­mot­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal health for the entire work­force is an excel­lent strat­egy for reduc­ing the risk of psy­cho­log­i­cal harm. A psy­cho­log­i­cally healthy work­place helps keep work­ers safe, engaged and productive.

The Guide is based on a com­pre­hen­sive imple­men­ta­tion model, the P6 Frame­work, that describes the change process in terms of six suc­ces­sive com­po­nents: Pol­icy, Plan­ning, Pro­mo­tion, Pre­ven­tion, Process and Persistence.

For each com­po­nent of the P6 Frame­work, three prac­ti­cal actions are pro­vided. These actions are con­sis­tent with research evi­dence and rep­re­sent a promis­ing prac­tice in the field of psy­cho­log­i­cal health and safety. Each action also includes an expla­na­tion of why it mat­ters, how to imple­ment it and access to sup­port­ive tools that are web-based, pri­mar­ily Cana­dian and avail­able at no or min­i­mal cost.

The guide also includes sto­ries that illus­trate how work­places have tack­led psy­cho­log­i­cal health and safety. The Guide is avail­able in French and Eng­lish and is con­sis­tent with, and com­ple­men­tary to, the National Stan­dard of Canada for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety in the Workplace.

We highly rec­om­mend down­load­ing and review­ing this action guide. This is the only ded­i­cated guide of its kind relat­ing to the new Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety Stan­dard imple­men­ta­tion. And it is avail­able in both French and Eng­lish (see the source for links to down­load the Action Guide).

 

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How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

APA Survey Finds US Employers Unresponsive to Employee Needs

March 5, 2013 By

A March 2013 report on a new sur­vey from the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Association’s Cen­ter for Orga­ni­za­tional Excel­lence (http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/03/employee-needs.aspx) has some find­ings that our blog read­ers may find rel­e­vant and infor­ma­tive for their work­place employee sup­port prac­tices. Notably, the following.

  1. Less than half of work­ing Amer­i­cans reported that they receive ade­quate mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion or non-monetary recognition.
  2. Only 43 per­cent said that recog­ni­tion is based on fair per­for­mance evaluations.
  3. Less than half said their employ­ers ‘hear’ them by seek­ing input, and only 37% of employ­ees said employ­ers take action on this feedback.
  4. Less than half of employ­ees sur­veyed said that there were resources to sup­port their men­tal health needs (and fewer still, 36%, said that there were resources to sup­port man­ag­ing stress).

Says Nor­man B. Ander­son, PhD, CEO of the APA:

This isn’t just an HR or man­age­ment issue. The well-being of an organization’s work­force is a strate­gic busi­ness imper­a­tive that is linked to its per­for­mance and success.

For women, the office is not “a level play­ing field”

The sur­vey fur­ther inves­ti­gated how female employ­ees per­ceived the work envi­ron­ment. Sum­ma­riz­ing the results:

  1. Forty-eight per­cent of women felt less val­ued than men.
  2. Fewer employed women than men reported that their employer pro­vides suf­fi­cient oppor­tu­ni­ties for inter­nal career advance­ment (35 % ver­sus 43%) or resources to help them man­age stress (34% ver­sus 38%).
  3. More women than men said they “typ­i­cally feel tense or stressed out at work” (37% ver­sus 33%).

Work-Life Fit?

In terms of work-life bal­ance, the sur­vey results revealed:

  1. Only 52% of work­ers believe employ­ers value work-life balance.
  2. Only 39% of work­ers reported that their employ­ers pro­vide options for flex­i­ble work.
  3. Sur­pris­ingly per­haps? Thirty-seven per­cent of women reported reg­u­larly using employee ben­e­fits designed to help them meet work-life demands (whereas almost half of male work­ers reported tak­ing advan­tage of these ben­e­fits); and just 38% of women said they reg­u­larly uti­lize work arrange­ments, com­pared to 42% of men.

Con­clud­ing the report, David W. Bal­lard, PsyD, MBA head of APA’s Cen­ter for Orga­ni­za­tional Excel­lence, comments:

When employ­ers acknowl­edge that employ­ees have respon­si­bil­i­ties and lives out­side of work, they can take steps to pro­mote a good work-life fit and help indi­vid­u­als bet­ter man­age these mul­ti­ple demands…Forward-thinking orga­ni­za­tions are reeval­u­at­ing work prac­tices, pro­vid­ing employ­ees with resources that sup­port well-being and per­for­mance and apply­ing new tech­nolo­gies that help shift work from some­where we go from 9-to-5 to some­thing we do that is mean­ing­ful and cre­ates value.

 
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How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

Psychological Health and Safety podcast

February 21, 2013 By

Our col­league psy­chol­o­gist Merv Gilbert (Adjunct Pro­fes­sor at Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity) and Gerry Culina, Gen­eral Health and Safety Ser­vices Man­ager at CCOHS, dis­cuss the pow­er­ful and expand­ing impact men­tal health prob­lems have on the workplace.

Released: Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

CCOHS pro­duces FREE monthly pod­casts designed to keep you cur­rent with infor­ma­tion, tips and insights into the health, safety and well-being of work­ing Cana­di­ans.
http://www.ccohs.ca/products/podcasts/
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How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

Breaking the cycle of workplace bullying!

February 19, 2013 By

Free pod­cast! Break­ing the Cycle of Work­place Bul­ly­ing
Inter­na­tional best sell­ing author Bar­bara Col­oroso, shares her views on work­place bul­ly­ing and pro­vides tips on how work­ers and employ­ers together, can help break the cycle of violence.

CCOHS pro­duces FREE monthly pod­casts designed to keep you cur­rent with infor­ma­tion, tips and insights into the health, safety and well-being of work­ing Cana­di­ans.
http://www.ccohs.ca/products/podcasts/
————————————————————————————

How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

We’re offering our expertise at Canada Pension and Benefits Institute event February 12

February 9, 2013 By

Home­wood Human Solu­tions’ Dr. Anne Malain VP of Client Ser­vices is a sub­ject mat­ter expert at Cana­dian Pen­sion and Ben­e­fits Insti­tute’ “Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety in the Work­place” event, tak­ing place at the Toronto Board of Trade Cen­tre Feb 12 (Bel­l­Let­sTalk! day). Great tim­ing; great info!

The event dis­cusses a vari­ety of per­ti­nent issues relat­ing to the new Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety Stan­dard we have been blog­ging about since its final release last month, including:

  • Employer spon­sored health ben­e­fits and employe pro­grams in the new standard.
  • Trends in law refer­ring to work­place men­tal health and Duty to Accommodate.
  • ROI from a well­ness per­spec­tive and a busi­ness case for improv­ing work­place men­tal health.

Don’t miss out, it’s upcom­ing fast.. on Tues­day! Reg­is­ter and more infor­ma­tion here: http://bit.ly/XvnUkc

 
 
 
Like us on facebook.com/homewoodhumansolutions

Fol­low @HomewoodHS on Twitter

Link with linkedin.com/companies/homewood-human-solutions

Watch us on our Home­woodHS YouTube channel

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

The Buzz Jan 27: Psychologically Healthy Workplaces: Articles of relevance to Employers

January 27, 2013 By

Psy­cho­log­i­cally Healthy Work­places: Arti­cles for Employees

Note: Posted links are rec­om­men­da­tions of the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion Cen­ter for Orga­ni­za­tional Excellence

5 ways lead­ers rock employee recog­ni­tion (Forbes, Jan 13, 2013)

Focuses on the issue of employee recog­ni­tion. Many employ­ees are used to being rec­og­nized and rewarded for com­plet­ing small tasks. The author sug­gests using the fol­low­ing approach to improve employee recog­ni­tion. She argues that employ­ees should be rec­og­nized (1) in the moment, (2) in con­text, (3) in an appro­pri­ate volume/scale, (4) in an authen­tic man­ner, and (5) in a way that ties the recog­ni­tion to the employee’s per­cep­tion of value. Hence, the author argues that recog­ni­tion is some­thing that requires a great deal of thought and con­sis­tency if it is going to pro­duce desired results.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghanbiro/2013/01/13/5-ways-leaders-rock-employee-recognition/

Employ­ees over­es­ti­mate their own health (Busi­ness News Daily, Jan­u­ary 10, 2013)

Focuses on the issue of employee health. Research by Aon Hewitt, National Busi­ness Group on Health and The Futures Com­pany found that while 90% of employ­ees believe that they are in good health, more than 50% report height and weight that would clas­sify them as over­weight or obese. Employ­ees are also mis­in­formed about what their orga­ni­za­tion pays for their health­care. While many orga­ni­za­tions pay almost 80% of an employee’s health­care bill, employ­ees believe that orga­ni­za­tions only pay 40% of the cost. The sur­vey also shows that using account-based plans may be asso­ci­ated with more pos­i­tive health behav­iors on the part of employees.

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3720-employee-health-preception.html

Call Williams Yost: Why we have to rethink work-life bal­ance (Forbes, Jan­u­ary 8, 2013)

Focuses on the issue of employee health. Research by Aon Hewitt, National Busi­ness Group on Health and The Futures Com­pany found that while 90% of employ­ees believe that they are in good health, more than 50% report height and weight that would clas­sify them as over­weight or obese. Employ­ees are also mis­in­formed about what their orga­ni­za­tion pays for their health­care. While many orga­ni­za­tions pay almost 80% of an employee’s health­care bill, employ­ees believe that orga­ni­za­tions only pay 40% of the cost. The sur­vey also shows that using account-based plans may be asso­ci­ated with more pos­i­tive health behav­iors on the part of employees.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/01/08/cali-williams-yost-why-we-have-to-rethink-work-life-balance/

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

The Buzz Jan 25: Free webinar to explain the new Psychological Health Standard

January 25, 2013 By

The Occu­pa­tional Health and Safety group is host­ing a webi­nar to explain the new Cana­dian Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health Stan­dard on Jan­u­ary 29.

A free webi­nar is tak­ing place Jan. 29 to help employ­ers and safety or HR pro­fes­sion­als find out about a new national stan­dard for psy­cho­log­i­cal health and safety in Cana­dian work­places. The Men­tal Health Com­mis­sion of Canada (MHCC), the Bureau de nor­mal­i­sa­tion du Québec, and CSA Group released the vol­un­tary National Stan­dard of Canada, “Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety in the Work­place – Pre­ven­tion, pro­mo­tion and guid­ance to staged imple­men­ta­tion,” on Jan. 16.

For more infor­ma­tion, and to reg­is­ter, visit here.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

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