Mental Health
Mental Health is becoming an increasing challenge in the workplace. One in five employees will suffer from depression and one in three employees will find that they will require assistance to manage mental health at some point during their working career.
Mental Wellbeing is as important as physical wellbeing when it comes to prevention and support for employee productivity. Gowan Consulting has vast experience in helping employers support their employees’ mental health and wellbeing. Mental health support and management programs require the involvement of all employees from the CEO to the frontline workers. Gowan Consulting will assist organizations in having a mental health strategy that supports wellbeing in the long term.
Gowan Health provides the best practice support for psychological health and safety in the workplace. Our customized approach to mental health in the workplace means that organizations can have the peace of mind to know that employees can have the support that they need when life happens and they become distress. Organizations can also have systems to ensure that the work does not cause the distress but provides a culture of support and understanding to continue to be productive through all types of distress and illness.
Our occupational therapists help employees to return to work and other activities by working with them to set manageable goals in physical and behavioural programs, in the home and community. This intervention provides structured reactivation programming to assist employees from the time they are off work to when they successfully return. Our strategies include provision of goal setting, routine building, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), mindfulness, exposure, and anxiety management strategies.
Gowan Consulting has developed evidence-based assessment approaches to document the cognitive and behavioural demands of the essential job duties for legal compliance and return-to-work planning. Our reports can be used to assess job matches and for communication with health care providers.
Our occupational therapists will provide an objective assessment of your employee’s functional cognitive capabilities and provide strategies to manage cognitive concerns at the workplace. As Certified by BrainFx Providers, we can get a clear picture of your employee’s strengths and challenges using this powerful new assessment tool. This will help us to suggest more targeted work intervention and determine their effectiveness in helping to improve work productivity.
When an employee has more complex functional barriers or has been away from the work force, our occupational therapists can help. In partnership with your workplace team, they will develop sustainable solutions, such as accommodations and return-to-work or stay-at-work plans. Employees will be able to work productively and safely with the assistance our occupational therapists can give them to overcome challenges.
A meeting will be arranged for the employee, manager and workplace teams to plan implementation and monitoring of the return-to-work program.
Gowan Consulting’s occupational therapist’s assess the employee’s cognition and collaborate with workplace stakeholders to develop individualized strategies. The assessment and tools assist an employee with their cognitive challenges that can impact their work performance. Gowan Consulting will also provide job coaching, training and implementation of low and high technology solutions to help employees work more productively.
Gowan Consulting helps employers to identify psychological risk factors in the workplace, implement measures to reduce the risk, and support employees in psychological health and safety in the workplace.
Gowan Consulting will assist you with the development and implementation of a mental health strategy in your workplace by providing customized mental health solutions and consulting services.
Our experts in adult education can give your employees practical training in mental health to help them perform their duties safely and effectively in the workplace. Employees will also be in a stronger position to support coworkers who are struggling with mental health conditions or distress.
Managers and coworkers may be the first to recognize the signs of distress in the workplace. These may include behavioural changes, performance difficulties and the inability to participate in workplace activities. Managers and coworkers should be trained to address the concerns with the employee and offer support.
Your employees can learn Mental Health First Aid for the workplace from our certified mental health educators. We can work with your organization to support implementation of this training in the workplace.
We offer a 3 to 4-hour training program about supervisor responsibilities including goal setting, to reduce the impact of mental health issues in their department. This program involves a customized toolkit of resources, interactive case studies and the following key information:
- What is mental illness?
- How to recognize the signs of distress and harm and respond in a proactive way
- How to have the crucial conversation (focusing on support and not counselling or advising)
- How to provide tools and work adjustments to support stay at work or return to work
- Resources to offer employees
This one-hour customized employee education program includes the skills and resources needed to care for personal stress and coworkers who may be distressed:
- Understanding stress and how it can be recognized in self and others
- How to assist someone who may be depressed
- How to assist someone who may be anxious
- How to assist someone who may be thinking of suicide
- How to offer and access resources
Customized online elearning provides education to employees and coworkers to help them to understand and support mental health in the workplace. This includes embedded videos and resources that can be loaded onto the learning and development website of any organization.
