The Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health Launches 11th Annual Faces of Mental Illness Campaign

May 13, 2013 By

The Cana­dian Alliance on Men­tal Ill­ness and Men­tal Health (CAMIMH) is launch­ing the 11th annual Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign and seek­ing nom­i­na­tions from the public.

CAMIMH is proud to orga­nize this impor­tant cam­paign, which fea­tures the faces and sto­ries of Cana­di­ans liv­ing in recov­ery with men­tal ill­ness. The cam­paign selects five indi­vid­u­als and enables them to tell their men­tal health sto­ries through pro­mo­tional mate­ri­als, in pro­file videos and through media engagement.

“The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness are advo­cates within the men­tal health com­mu­nity. Their lived expe­ri­ences allow them to engage the pub­lic and polit­i­cal deci­sion mak­ers in a very effec­tive way,” said Dr. Karen Cohen, CAMIMH Cam­paign Chair 2013. “Their’s are sto­ries that, when shared pub­licly, help to edu­cate, reverse stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion, and help oth­ers in recovery.”

The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign is a key com­po­nent of Men­tal Ill­ness Aware­ness Week (MIAW) run­ning from Octo­ber 6th-12th 2013. The cam­paign is made pos­si­ble by the gen­er­ous sup­port and com­mit­ment of Bell, CAMIMH’s Pre­sent­ing Spon­sor, as part of Bell Let’s Talk. CAMIMH is also glad to wel­come and appre­ci­ate Lund­beck Canada Inc. for their gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tion as Pre­mier Sponsor.

“Men­tal ill­ness affects so many Cana­di­ans and their need for help is great. Although we have treat­ments, ser­vices and sup­ports that work, these are not suf­fi­ciently avail­able to peo­ple who need them. Canada must do a bet­ter job invest­ing in treat­ments, ser­vices and sup­ports and mak­ing them acces­si­ble where and when peo­ple need them. The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign shows Cana­di­ans that men­tal ill­ness has many faces – faces famil­iar to all of us and the faces of peo­ple who deserve respect, admi­ra­tion, and most impor­tantly, our atten­tion. The cam­paign reminds us that recov­ery is pos­si­ble, and that access to ser­vices and sup­ports is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of this recov­ery,” con­cluded Cohen.

CAMIMH Call­ing for Sub­mis­sions from Mem­bers of the Public

To nom­i­nate a Face, please visit camimh.ca. Nom­i­na­tions will be accepted until May 31st, 2013. The 2013 Faces will be announced in late June. CAMIMH would once again like to thank their gen­er­ous spon­sors who make this cam­paign pos­si­ble: Bell, Lund­beck Canada Inc., Impact Pub­lic Affairs and Janssen.

Estab­lished in 1998, the Cana­dian Alliance on Men­tal Ill­ness and Men­tal Health (CAMIMH) is an alliance of national men­tal health orga­ni­za­tions com­prised of health care providers and orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing per­sons with men­tal ill­ness and their fam­i­lies and care­givers. CAMIMH’s man­date is to ensure that men­tal health is placed on the national agenda so that per­sons with a lived expe­ri­ence of men­tal ill­ness and their fam­i­lies receive appro­pri­ate access to care and support.

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:
Kalene DeBaere­maeker
Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness Com­mit­tee
Tel: 613–233-8906
Email: faces@miaw.ca

To nom­i­nate a Face, please visit camimh.ca.

 

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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.

 

 

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).

————————————————————————————

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.

 

 

Co-workers are integral to successful return-to-work process: Studies

March 19, 2013 By

Cana­dian Safety Reporter this week drew our atten­tion to two qual­i­ta­tive stud­ies, joint ven­tures between past and present sci­en­tists from Toronto-based Insti­tute for Work and Health (IWH), and col­leagues in Aus­tralia. Both stud­ies shed light on the oft-neglected stake­holder in the return-to-work process: co-workers.

Study 1: Fac­tors affect­ing co-worker sup­port, key conclusions

Among the key con­clu­sions, Debra Dun­stan of the Uni­ver­sity of New Eng­land in Aus­tralia and co-author Ellen MacEachen reported:

  • Most co-workers have no infor­ma­tion regard­ing when a return­ing co-worker is due to arrive at the workplace
  • Con­fu­sion about job reas­sign­ment is common.
  • In terms of offer­ing sup­port, the most will­ing co-workers are those with a pre-existing pos­i­tive rela­tion­ship with the return­ing worker.
  • Other fac­tors influ­enc­ing will­ing­ness and con­sis­tency of sup­port included: work­place cul­ture (e.g. are work­ers team-oriented?) and the dura­tion of the required support.

Notably, although some work­ers in the study saw the return-to-work process in pos­i­tive terms, most described the process as detri­men­tal. Com­ment­ing, Dun­stan and MacEachen:

Spe­cific neg­a­tive impacts on co-workers included extra work or heav­ier duties, and dis­rup­tions of per­sonal work effec­tive­ness, orga­ni­za­tional effec­tive­ness and work­place social rela­tion­ships. In the worst-case sce­nar­ios, co-workers suf­fered ‘rip­ple effects’ such as emo­tional dis­tress, phys­i­cal injury and ter­mi­na­tion of their own employment.

Addi­tion­ally, confidentiality/privacy require­ments posed chal­lenges to sup­port­ing the process. Con­tinue Dun­stan and MacEachen:

Co-workers, who saw them­selves as poten­tial resources in RTW plan­ning, some­times felt shut out of the process due to con­fi­den­tial­ity require­ments — even when they wanted to show sup­port to the return­ing worker…as well, co-workers’ lack of infor­ma­tion about the nature of the work­place injury some­times led to dam­ag­ing rumours and speculation.

Study 2: The Struc­ture of work, key conclusions

The sec­ond return-to-work study echoed the find­ings of the first (above). The study, led by Agnieszka Kosny, for­mer sci­en­tist at the Toronto-based Insti­tute for Work and Health and now a research fel­low at Australia’s Monash Uni­ver­sity, concluded:

  • The struc­ture of work can impede co-worker sup­port and con­tribute to mak­ing injured work­ers’ expe­ri­ences difficult.
  • Fac­tors and work con­di­tions con­tribut­ing to these dif­fi­cul­ties include:
    • a com­pet­i­tive and cost-cutting cul­ture that facil­i­tates the view of injured work­ers as a liability
    • job inse­cu­rity (i.e. pre­car­i­ous­ness of work)
    • dif­fer­ent “camps” in the elec­tri­cal sec­tor, which were unlikely to help each other (for exam­ple, those with steady employ­ment ver­sus those with non-permanent work)
      lit­tle mod­i­fied work
    • poor offi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion among work­place parties.

Com­ments Kosney:

Man­age­ment can model accept­able and unac­cept­able behav­iours for their workforce…it sets an exam­ple for how injured work­ers are regarded and treated.

Improv­ing co-worker expe­ri­ences with the return-to-work proces

Study 1 authors Dun­stan and MacEachen pro­posed some ways that man­age­ment can improve co-workers’ expe­ri­ences with return-to-work. These include:

  • hir­ing replace­ment staff to ease the work­load on co-workers;
  • com­mu­ni­cat­ing effec­tively so co-workers under­stand the injury (respect­ing privacy);
  • con­sult­ing about return-to-work plans;
  • receiv­ing guid­ance on how to best help;
  • tan­gi­ble acknowl­edge­ment rec­og­niz­ing co-worker con­tri­bu­tions (e.g. mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion, extra hol­i­day time).

More infor­ma­tion

For more infor­ma­tion on Dunstan’s research, see the pre­sen­ta­tion here, with links on that page to the pre­sen­ta­tion slides (PDF format).

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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.

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.
 

————————————————————————————

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).

 

————————————————————————————

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.

 

Podcast: Exploring Psychosocial Issues in the Workplace

February 21, 2013 By

Dr. Kevin Kel­loway, the Canada Research Chair in Occu­pa­tional Health Psy­chol­ogy at Saint Mary’s Uni­ver­sity in Hal­i­fax, Nova Sco­tia explains what pos­i­tive psy­chol­ogy is and how it relates to work­place stress.

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.

 

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/
————————————————————————————

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.

 

Bell Lets Talk! on February 12: Mood Disorders and Depression

February 6, 2013 By

Each day from now until Bel­l­Let­sTalk Men­tal Health Day (Feb­ru­ary 12) we will be fea­tur­ing an arti­cle from our expert col­leagues at Home­wood Health Cen­tre (our sis­ter orga­ni­za­tion in Guelph, Ontario: a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act, and Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treatment).

Today our focus is on Mood Dis­or­ders and Depres­sion. Specifically:

Mood Dis­or­ders and Depression

Most peo­ple expe­ri­ence highs and lows in their lives – peri­ods of hap­pi­ness and con­tent­ment and times of sad­ness. The death of a loved one, a job loss, the end of a mar­riage can gen­er­ate feel­ings of sad­ness and despair, that last briefly and then grad­u­ally subside.

When a low mood inter­feres with an individual’s abil­ity to carry out tasks that need to be done, either at home or at work, then clin­i­cal depres­sion, the most com­mon type of mood dis­or­der, is likely the cause.

Symp­toms of depres­sion include:

Gen­er­ally, the peo­ple clos­est to an indi­vid­ual with clin­i­cal depres­sion will notice changes in their mood, behav­iour and gen­eral out­look on life. Some of the symp­toms of clin­i­cal depres­sion are:

  • appetite and weight changes
  • changes in sleep­ing habits – either sleep­ing more than usual or unable to sleep
  • lack of con­cen­tra­tion or focus
  • inde­ci­sive­ness
  • loss of inter­est in job, friends, fam­ily, sex
  • loss of self-esteem
  • avoid­ance of peo­ple and social gatherings
  • feel­ing of hope­less­ness, lack of inter­est in the future
  • guilt
  • irri­tabil­ity
  • extreme fatigue and loss of energy
  • thoughts of sui­cide or death and pos­si­bly mak­ing plans.

Peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced five or more of these symp­toms for more than two weeks are con­sid­ered to be clin­i­cally depressed.

Ten to 25 per cent of women expe­ri­ence major depres­sion at some time in their lives. Men also expe­ri­ence depres­sion, but when they are feel­ing depressed, they may deal with it dif­fer­ently than women, using alco­hol or other substances.

Causes of depression

Depres­sion can be caused by a num­ber of factors:

  • Genet­ics - some fam­i­lies have a his­tory of depres­sion and indi­vid­u­als within the fam­ily have a ten­dency to expe­ri­ence depres­sion at cer­tain times in life, e.g. child­birth, menopause
  • Phys­i­cal cause – A chem­i­cal imbal­ance in the brain with neu­ro­trans­mit­ters in the brain at lev­els too low to main­tain a pos­i­tive mood
  • The individual’s out­look on life and ten­dency to be pes­simistic and melancholy
  • A stress­ful or trau­matic event

Types of depres­sion include:

Sea­sonal Affec­tive Dis­or­der – expe­ri­enced by peo­ple who are sen­si­tive to weather and sea­sonal changes, par­tic­u­larly the low light in fall and winter.

Post-Partum Depres­sion – major depres­sion fol­low­ing the birth of a baby (within four months of childbirth)

Major Depres­sion –  five or more of the symp­toms listed above last­ing for more than two weeks that sig­nif­i­cantly affect the individual’s abil­ity to func­tion at work, at home, at school and in social set­tings. In its most severe form, the indi­vid­ual becomes psy­chotic, los­ing touch with reality.

Dys­thymic Dis­or­der – chronic low mood that could go on for years. The indi­vid­ual func­tions, but at a low level, with ongo­ing fatigue, poor appetite, insom­nia, poor con­cen­tra­tion, lack of inter­est or engage­ment and gen­eral hopelessness.

Clin­i­cal depres­sion – depend­ing on the cause, indi­vid­u­als could even­tu­ally improve on their own, but treat­ment will help them get bet­ter more quickly.

Treat­ing depression

Depres­sion is treat­able and peo­ple can return to a healthy and pro­duc­tive life with med­ica­tion in com­bi­na­tion with psy­chother­apy, in par­tic­u­lar cog­ni­tive behav­ioural ther­apy. Elec­tro­con­vul­sive ther­apy (ECT) is used if peo­ple do not expe­ri­ence reduced symp­toms with med­ica­tion and for those who are sui­ci­dal. Early inter­ven­tion with an effec­tive treat­ment can result in com­plete recovery.

More infor­ma­tion on mood disorders

Cana­dian Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion  http://www.cmha.ca/bins/index.asp

Trel­lis Men­tal Health and Devel­op­men­tal Ser­vices – http://www.trellis.on.ca/en/

Mood Dis­or­ders Soci­ety of Canada – http://www.mooddisorderscanada.ca/

Mood Dis­or­ders Asso­ci­a­tion of Ontario – http://mooddisorders.on.ca/

Cen­tre for Addic­tion and Men­tal Health  – http://www.camh.net/

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