The purpose of this guideline is to help support the mental health of workers by reducing the potential for negative effects of poor ergonomics in temporary work at home situations.
During a critical event, some or all workers in an organization might be required to work at home for a period of time. This is not a business as normal situation. The duration of work at home may vary and may be unknown, depending on the nature of the event and the nature of the work. It can be difficult for workers to adapt, particularly if the situation has affected multiple workplaces, schools and community supports.
While a worker may seek comfort while working at home temporarily, it is important to understand that comfort does not always minimize risk, particularly if the worker is in deep focus or if their “comfortable” position is the result of poor posture. It is also important to recognize that a worker may feel the need to push through a task despite discomfort or pain.
Practicing good ergonomics in temporary work at home situations can be quite challenging. However, it is important, because ergonomics can affect a worker’s physical and mental health, and their ability to function in work and personal situations.
Management and workers need to work together to ensure good ergonomic practice in a temporary work at home situation. In many cases, workers may not have an “ideal” set up to facilitate work from home as they might in a permanent work from home situation. Even if the worker does have a home office, in cases such as a critical event that affects multiple organizations, there may be others in the home sharing that space.
A worker may have a home office with a good ergonomic set up or they may be working at their kitchen table, or on their couch, in another room of the home, or even on their floor. Requiring a worker to have a typical office ergonomic set up could increase stress for a worker who does not have access to the space, equipment or privacy to have such a set up. However, supporting the ergonomic needs of the worker with consideration of the other challenges they may be dealing with can help to ease the strain on the body and mind in situations where workers may be working in less than ideal set ups.
Author: Unknown
When I first began my position as a Knowledge Broker, many times I found myself smirking at loved one’s reactions when I attempted to explain my job and the work that I do.
Claiming that “I deal in knowledge,” isn’t always the wisest way to explain the need for Knowledge Translation (KT).
You see, after I finished grad school, I decided to intentionally “do” theory by throwing myself into front-line work. I was frustrated with the reality that a lot of the knowledge that we were being taught in school simply remained within our classrooms. This was confirmed when I was a front-line worker within women’s shelters. Sadly, I discovered that most of the theory that I studied in school wasn’t being implemented within the shelters! And there my friends, is a perfect example of knowledge translation.
In short, KT is bridging the two worlds of knowledge and action together.
“Innovation to Implementation Guide (I2I)” explains KT in the following way: “Research has established that there is a substantial gap from the time new knowledge is created to when it is put into practice. The field of Knowledge Translation (KT) has emerged as a response to this gap.”
Believe me, it took much trial and error to get a grasp on a fuller picture of what KT is and why we need it. Here are a few tips that I have learned along the way that clarifies KT myths from reality.
Myth #1
KT is only for researchers in academia.
Reality:
Anyone can use KT! KT is a valuable tool that acts as a bridge for knowledge to influence practice.
Past SPARK participants have showcased the diversity of KT through their different projects. Whether it was through creating a support group for newcomer Muslim mothers, or working towards more effective strategies to help problem gamblers, their work demonstrates the diversity of KT.
Myth #2
KT can only be used within the Health field.
Reality:
KT can be used across many fields and disciplines. KT invites us all to put valuable knowledge into practice in order to bring about transformative change. For example, past SPARK participants have tackled diverse topics such as a focus on the Corrections and prison industry, and the exploration of new methods to train peer supporters within marginalized communities. Their ideas were inspired by the desire to transform the populations that they worked with.
Myth #3
KT is only necessary to meet grant application requirements
Reality:
KT is not limited to assessments or applications! KT can be used in countless ways; in community organizing, to improve services and policies within organizations etc. The best thing to remember is that KT turns knowledge into action. If you consider KT within this mindset, you can practically apply this process to any project that needs to move from theory into practice. KT is about “doing knowledge”, not so much about “showing how you will incorporate knowledge.” Don’t get me wrong, we love grant applications! But KT is not restricted to them alone.
Now that you have learned a little more about KT, what’s stopping you from using it within your own work?
Elizabeth Peprah is a current PhD Student in Human and Social Services with a concentration in Community Intervention and Leadership at Walden University. She is a graduate of a master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies at Carleton University where she researched the connection between mental health and sexual assault trauma. Elizabeth further discovered the importance of adequate mental health services for victimized women while working with women in a bail residency program with the Elizabeth Fry Society of Ottawa. She blogs on gender-based violence at serwaaspeaks.com and has been a Knowledge Broker with the MHCC since January 2020.
Follow us on social media for up-to-date information on Knowledge Translation, tools and resources, and upcoming courses.
Facebook: fb.me/sparkkt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/acSparkKt
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/sparkkt/
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Supporting the mental health of health-care workers during COVID-19
“Health-care workers have always been heroes in my eyes,” said Louise Bradley, president and CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), herself a registered nurse and former hospital administrator. “But when a once-in-a-generation crisis like COVID-19 arises, we ask even more of an already overextended workforce.”
Ed Mantler, the MHCC’s vice-president of Programs and Priorities, agrees. “Pre-pandemic, 40 per cent of physicians and nurses were experiencing advanced stages of burnout. So we were already working hard to create a suite of training modules and resources to bolster the mental wellness of this critical workforce.”
Now, those tools are more relevant and important than ever.
“We know that the psychological toll of a pandemic can have serious consequences for health-care workers,” affirmed Bradley, who pointed to one study estimating that between 29 and 35 per cent of these workers experienced a high degree of distress during the SARS outbreak in a Toronto hospital. A similar survey of medical staff in Taiwan found that 93.5 per cent considered the SARS outbreak a traumatic experience.
Fortunately, health-care workers do not have to face the burden alone. A variety of mental health resources are now available to bolster their resiliency and improve their well-being.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, for example, offers a resource hub specifically for those working in health care during COVID-19, which features helpful advice, videos, and links to external supports.
The MHCC has spent many years developing various mental health resources in health care, including a recent webinar series exploring self-care for workers and advice for leaders during COVID-19.
“It’s important to recognize that health care has always been a demanding field, and that many of the mental health challenges workers are now facing will not disappear once the pandemic is over,” said Bradley. She urged health-care organizations to use proactive education measures for staff, such as posters like this to remind workers how they can manage anxiety and substance use.
For Mantler, “While resources for individual providers are important, enhancing mental wellness is also a matter of shifting a culture where stoicism has been the norm for far too long.”
Often, the first step toward improvement is assessment. Caring for Healthcare Workers — Assessment Tools is a helpful resource for doing so. It looks at a variety of psychosocial factors to help health-care organizations identify areas of vulnerability and take steps to improve psychological health and safety.
Creating a culture of mental wellness also takes commitment. A great way to understand what an organization is doing well and where there is room for improvement is through the National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (the Standard), a framework that provides comprehensive guidelines to promote positive mental health in the workplace.
“I was hired to run a large teaching hospital many years ago,” Bradley recalled. “At first I felt my skill set wasn’t aligned with the role. But I soon learned I wasn’t there to tell medical experts how to do their jobs. I was brought in to change the culture they worked in.”
To help guide the implementation of the Standard in health-care settings, the MHCC co-developed the Caring for Healthcare Toolkit, which includes real-world accounts of health-care organizations adopting the Standard and nearly 40 practical tools to assist with that process.
For more on the MHCC’s health-care tools and resources, see our complete list.
For Bradley, the work to support health-care workers began long before COVID-19, and it will continue long after. “When the masks come off and the world re-opens, health-care workers will still be heroes, and they will still deserve our support.”
Amber St. Louis
Civility and respect is correlated with the workplace factor of psychological protection. They meet similar human needs. When these factors are compromised, it can result in significant stress and can have a tremendous impact on the energy level of an individual, a team and even the entire organization. It is important to maintain an environment of civility and respect and psychological protection, to protect mental health and lower the risk of psychological and physical harm that can occur.
The risk that civility and respect and psychological protection can be compromised is greater when dealing with a situation where workers feel negative psychological impacts of their work environment – which is what we are dealing with. When people don’t feel safe in their environment, it affects them psychologically. Fear, anger, and stigma can occur, and this can put people at greater risk of psychological and physical harm.
As we attempt to navigate working and living through COVID-19, we need to have a clear understanding of the social stigma and harassment that can affect people as they strive to cope with this new reality.
There is a growing concern for the mental health of retail workers, and it’s up to all of us to support them.
Retail workers have been on the frontlines since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic keeping our necessities flowing. These people are courageous. They are putting themselves out among the public, many are serving hundreds of people every day, often for low pay. Now, as we are beginning to reopen the economy, more people will be working again in retail, supporting our needs and our wants.
While many customers have been courteous, there are increasing reports of customers treating retail workers rudely, even to the point of violence. It’s understandable that as customers we can be frustrated about not being able to get what we want or to return items we don’t want or need when we want to.
Isolation and quarantine are hard for many people. We can feel helpless, anxious, and even angry when our freedom is taken away and when we are isolated from other people, especially those we love and those we enjoy spending time with outside of our homes.
But we must remember not to take our frustrations out on retail workers. Let’s try to exercise a little empathy, so instead of reacting in frustration, we can respond with civility and respect.
Pause. Breathe.
Remember, that cashier, stock person, customer service rep, or supervisor that you are dealing with are facing many of the same frustrations we all are, plus:
- they may be under considerable financial stress, just trying to pay their bills
- many may have to face challenges with public transit just to get to and from work every day, and with the changes in public transit, that has become more difficult and scarier for many
- they may be serving hundreds of customers every day, not knowing who is a carrier of COVID-19
- they may be afraid of getting sick with COVID or bringing it home to their families; and
- they might afraid of losing their jobs.
So, let’s work together to support the mental health of our retail workers. Please join us in giving retail workers the civility and respect they deserve.
Coming out has been a lifetime process for Larry. He had always been exceedingly shy, so much so that as a boy in his small town in rural Alberta, Larry would cross the street to avoid having to speak to classmates he might run into.
He had always had a sense of being alone. He focused his energies on school and performed very well, continuing through to attend medical school. It was there that he finally came out as a gay man. For Larry, coming out meant being able to connect with others who identified as gay and beginning the journey of accepting himself.
Larry sought counselling for what was deemed to be depression (although he felt more anxious than anything else) but found it unhelpful as he felt a lack of genuine understanding and had difficulty relating to the counsellor. He felt the only place that supported gay men at the time were bars, which Larry quickly found were not the best environment for him to be as he was still very shy and not confident in himself. As he began to spend more of his time in bars, Larry began to use alcohol and experiment with other substances to cope with his shyness and try to connect with others.
Four or five years into his residency, after graduating in 1968 near the top of his class, Larry’s substance use had become so heightened that he had been reduced to doing medical odd jobs. By the time he arrived in Edmonton, those around him saw he had developed a problem and encouraged him to seek help. Larry was connected by the College of Physicians and Surgeons to appropriate treatment and was admitted for prolonged residential treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder. Once Larry had completed treatment, he joined an Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) group in his area for continued support.
Larry felt that he needed to constantly test what it meant to be a gay man. It became very important to him to connect with others that were like him. Although Larry was benefiting from his AA group, he never really felt like he was totally understood. He got together with another gay friend and decided to form an AA group for gay men and women, creating a safe space where individuals could more genuinely relate and connect. They began with just the two of them, but after 6 months the group began to grow into a positive support network for Larry and the others in the group. It was this same group he would fall back on years later during a relapse into alcohol use disorder when he was in his sixties.
It was during this relapse as an older adult that Larry felt was at the lowest point in his life. It was as if he had forgotten the pain that alcohol use disorder had caused in his past. He began drinking occasionally and before he knew it his alcohol use became a serious problem. Because Larry was now an older adult, his drinking had grave physical implications and Larry developed serious heart problems. He ended up being hospitalized as well as entering long-term treatment once more. He felt humiliated as many of his friends and medical colleagues saw him drunk for the first time, a degrading experience. It was the network of friends developed through AA that had provided him with positive social interactions and support so many years ago that he found solace in as an older adult. They had become his extended family in his time of need.
Larry has now been abstaining from alcohol for nearly 10 years, and although he has not been able to attend AA meetings during the winter months, being an older adult in long-term care, he credits much of his recovery to those peer support meetings and the networks that were built over the years. The aloneness that he very much felt as a boy and as a young man has been somewhat mitigated by these meaningful connections and bonds formed through the AA group he pioneered to create a safe space for gay men and women so many years ago.
Learning from Larry’s Story
Meaningful peer support and connections are very important to all individuals facing mental health and addictions problems and can become even more so in older adults as they begin to face physical barriers and challenges to connection. It was important to Larry that he not only have peer connections but that those connections be with individuals who he feels understand him and to whom he can genuinely relate in a safe space. Person-centered care was essential to Larry’s recovery, as well as stigma-free support from loved ones, peers and professionals.
Given the physical changes related to aging, older adults are much more vulnerable to the negative effects of alcohol on cognition, emotions and in Larry’s case physical health. Mental health services can help develop useful strategies for intervention in collaboration with addictions and provide opportunities for recovery to those who have complications from substance use.
A lot of the time when I’m delivering mental health training, people tend to forget or overlook their mental health, because they think it doesn’t affect them.
Similar to physical health, it is very important to remember that we all have mental health. A lot of the time when I’m delivering mental health training, people tend to forget or overlook their mental health, because they think it doesn’t affect them. A distinction we need to remember is we all have mental health but not everyone has mental health problems.
Over these past few months, I believe it’s safe to say that our mental health has been affected by various, unexpected stressors that we’ve all faced caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Today I want to write about the importance of checking in on yourself.
In our mental health training program The Working Mind, we teach participants about the mental health continuum. The continuum shows us that it’s normal for our mental health to change and gives us tips on how to work towards moving our mental health back to the healthy (green) column.
Let’s think about our mental health as a thermometer. When our “mental health temperature” is stable or 37 C, we’re seen as being in the “green” column. When we’re in the green, we’re able to deal with the stressors that life throws at us. Lately, we’ve been asked to deal with different challenges we may not have been prepared for, such as being an essential worker, physical distancing, homeschooling or financial difficulties. Facing all of this can lead us into having a low-grade fever or being in the “yellow”. When in the yellow, we may find we are more irritable, have less motivation or we may not be sleeping well. This is a normal reaction to an abnormal event, the pandemic being the event. We have not lived through a pandemic before, so it’s important to remember to be kind to yourself.
As our mental health declines, or our mental health temperatures rises, we may find ourselves moving into the “orange” column. This is where we may see an increase of symptoms that were present when we were in the yellow column. At this point, it is very important to start using our coping skills and self-care tips to try to move back towards the yellow and eventually the green categories. The longer we stay in the orange, the more at risk we are to move into the “red” column which may lead to a serious mental health problem or what we could consider a mental health temperature of 41 C. When in the red, it is recommended that you seek professional help in order to start working your way back along the continuum.
Tending to our mental health is just as important as caring for our physical health. Over the past few months, I know my mental health has fluctuated between green-yellow and even yellow-orange a time or two. The important thing to remember is that we all have the ability to get back to the green by practicing self-care, using our supports and coping skills, and most importantly, being kind to ourselves. We’re doing the best we can one day or even one hour at a time.
Talk soon,
Denise
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Louise Bradley in conversation with Minister of Health Patty Hajdu
On May 20, I sat down for a candid, wide-ranging virtual discussion with Health Minister Patty Hajdu. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has become a familiar face in living rooms across the country as she faithfully provides daily briefings to keep the people in Canada up to date on the tireless public health response mounted by the federal government.
It’s fitting, then, that our meeting began just as fire alarm testing in her building got underway. Apologetic and with wry wit, the minister admitted that working from home isn’t the idyll we’d all imagined.
As the siren wails periodically, I’m reminded that she has been answering the call of a national emergency without respite since January 15. I wanted to know what that experience has been like for her, not only as a politician, but also as a person.
I begin by asking her how she’s doing. Her frank response mirrors a reality many of us can relate to. “Honestly, it depends on the day. And I think it’s so important to normalize feelings of fear, frustration, anger, and anxiety. Those feeling aren’t exclusive to a pandemic either. We’re liable to experience them just about any time. But right now, of course, everything is heightened.”
Not only has Hajdu worked with vulnerable populations as the head of a shelter in Thunder Bay, she’s also walked the lonely road of single parenting and knows that half the battle of accessing care, when your own resources are about to run dry, is just getting there.
“I used to have to haul my kids out of school and disrupt my own work to get our family the counselling it needed,” she explained. “Virtual care hurdles so many of these barriers, and it also guards against people feeling their privacy might be compromised. As someone who has lived in a rural community, I know how hard it can be to get professional advice from someone you haven’t seen at the hockey rink or run into at the school.”
“We’re really striving to let people know this care is available,” said Hajdu. “When I hear about communities pooling their funding to raise money to access psychotherapies, I wish there was more we could do to alert people that we’ve got an entire toolbox at their disposal.”
But the minister is quick to point out additional resources aren’t a panacea. “I think the pandemic has revealed, broadly speaking, what those of us toiling in the annals of mental health have known for a very long time. If you don’t have the basic dignity of a house to live in, if you don’t have a job from which you derive self-worth, and if you aren’t connected to community, all the tools in the world aren’t going to fix your problems.”
An impassioned advocate for the most vulnerable, Hajdu became visibly distressed at the suggestion that counselling can be of service to those whose basic needs are not being met.
Content Warning: sexual abuse
“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” she said, clearly speaking as someone who has seen the gritty reality of homelessness. “It’s bordering on unethical to offer counselling to a woman being raped at a shelter she’s got no choice but to stay at. We need to get her out of that environment and get her safe. Then we can talk about dealing with her trauma.”
Hajdu’s authenticity is palpable, even through Zoom. And I’m not alone in feeling it. When I ask her what has given her hope during these difficult times, she doesn’t hesitate.
“You know, I have hard days. Days when I miss my spouse and my kids. Days when, like everyone else, I am just craving that human connection,” she said, explaining that the demands of her job have upended her routine, keeping her in the nation’s capital for weeks on end and preventing her from seeing her family in Thunder Bay. “But then I get an email from someone who tells me I’m doing a good job.” Here, her eyes shine, and I don’t think it’s from the screen’s glare, though I can’t be sure.
“When someone reaches out, despite whatever it is they may be dealing with, and offers me kind words of encouragement, I’m reminded that, while it might be harder to do right now, being kind is just the essence of what is going to get us through this. We might be a little tattered and torn, but it’s the connection, the sense of community we have as a country, that’s going to be our saving grace.”
Speaking of community, Hajdu reflects on the efforts of an organization in her hometown that successfully pivoted from its gardening program for at-risk youth to creating a lunch program for kids without access to school meals.
“They didn’t know if they were going to have funding for this. They just mobilized volunteers and stepped into the breach. It’s inspiring.”
One could argue that Hajdu herself has done much the same. “I was never prepared for this,” she admitted. “And we’re learning as we go. But I think we’re learning some really important things. We’re learning how to innovate faster. We’re learning how to work better together across jurisdictions and across party lines. And we’re learning that we’re all maybe a lot stronger than we thought we were.”
I end by asking the minster to describe her experience at the helm of what is arguably the most important and challenging portfolio in all of government . . . in three words.
She pauses. But, as ever, rises to the challenge. “Today, I would say intense, inspiring, and optimistic. Intense, I think is obvious. Inspiring because we’ve pulled together, and optimistic because I believe we are resilient enough to emerge from this not just different, but better.”
The fire alarm is still sounding when we finish our call, reminding me that the minister’s job is far from over.
If you are in distress, please contact your nearest distress centre or rape crisis centre. If it is an emergency, call 9-1-1 or go to your local emergency department.
Louise Bradley
As we navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic and begin to think about how to recover our operations and the economy, it is critical to think about how to build mental health into our emergency management and business continuity plans.
In this webinar we will cover:
- Potential impact of emergencies and disasters, (COVID-19 in particular) on the mental health of workers
- Worker mental health needs when dealing with emergencies and disasters, including infectious disease pandemics
- How to use the National Standard of Canada on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace to build mental health into your organization’s emergency management and business continuity programs.
