LISTEN TO PART ONE OVER AT THE PSYCH HEALTH AND SAFETY USA PODCAST! 😁

In this episode, host Kim MacDonald talks with special guest Dr. I. David Daniels, about his experience over the last year as the host of the Psych Health & Safety USA podcast. Dr. Daniels will share some of his pivotal moments as host. He shares the life and work experiences that shaped his interest in occupational health and safety and in the specialty area of psychological health and safety. Listeners will get a chance to hear about the workplace experiences that are the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation and how that research informs the work he does as an agent of positive change. Dr. Daniels will also share his thoughts on how the United States supports psychological health and safety, what is changing, what needs to change, and the near-term opportunities that help him stay hopeful and optimistic.

Early adopters in any emerging frontier can offer great practical learning and help pave the way for those who come after. Although many leading academics and behavioural scientists have been studying the connections among psychosocial stress and stressors, work conditions, leader influence, and mental health and wellbeing, we are still very much in the early stages of applying psychological health and safety management, strategies, and interventions into Canadian organizations.

In this episode, host Kim MacDonald talks with special guest Adam Chomos about his experience developing and facilitating a workplace psychological health and safety education and training intervention with an early adopter. Listeners get a front-row seat to a thoughtful and open debrief on the project, including purpose, process, experience, challenging parts, the things that occur that you weren't expecting, and lessons learned.

In this episode, host Kim MacDonald talks with Dr. Alycia Damp, a behavioural scientist applying science with technology to change the way we work. Dr. Damp is currently working in a Canadian company, applying selection science to the important process and practice of workplace hiring. The company, HireGuide, is developing evidence-based and behavioural science-backed systems that help organizations mitigate the negative impacts of risk factors like human bias and unstructured interviewing, and improve hiring accuracy and job fit and achieve organizational transparency, equity, fairness, and inclusion goals. Dr. Damp offers her advice for the best place to invest your time in the hiring process to support your long-term psychological health and safety efforts.

Read Dr. Damps's article to explore new considerations for hiring planning around job and culture fit:

https://www.hireguide.com/blog-posts/hire-for-culture-fit

Canada Crisis Line: If you or someone you know is in immediate crisis or has suicide-related concerns, please call 1-833-456-4566 toll free (In QC: 1-866-277-3553), 24/7 or visit talksuicide.ca.

1-833-456-4566 (24/7)

1-866-277-3553 in Quebec (24/7)

In this episode, host Kim MacDonald talks with Seana Jewer, the Nova Scotia community engagement leader in the Mental Health Commission of Canada's national Roots of Hope suicide prevention project about the role of workplaces, leadership, and each of us can play at work in suicide prevention. Suicide prevention is complex, but a healthy and safe, stigma-free workplace that creates safety for learning and talking about mental health, mental illness, and human struggle is a partner and stakeholder in all communities. Seana shares how workplaces can start, breaks myths, talks risk factors, and helps shed light on this topic which continues to carry a stigma.

Do you know if your employees or your peers experience chronic pain? If you did, would you know how to help? While chronic pain is increasingly common among employees in many industries, in this episode, podcast Host Kim MacDonald talks with Dr. Duygu Biricik Gulseren about this topic and explores what CEO's think about it, what it means to inclusion and mentally healthy workplaces.

Dr. Gulseren's exploration of the experiences of employees who live with chronic illness, chronic pain and pain disability is her effort to ensure her research work has practical applications for those improving their work conditions and sustaining healthy and effective organizations.

Kim and Dr. Gulseren will discuss her two most recent published two studies on leadership behaviour, pain and organizational justice and the intersection of these conditions with inclusion, psychological safety behaviour and employees psychological experiences at work.

Dr. Gulseren is an organizational psychologist and assistant professor at York University in the school of occupational health and safety. Dr. Gulseren works with her students to create practical tools and resources for workplace practitioners of OH&S change. She holds unique conversations on her Occupational Health & Safety podcast and makes available practical resources developed by students. The student-led project is called theohsproject.

In this episode Host Kim MacDonald speaks with Dr. Kevin Kelloway, a professor of industrial organizational behaviour at St. Mary's University and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair about the role of workplace leaders today in the workplace and the impact they have on employee health. They discuss what we know today about mental health at work, workplace stress, and the leader behaviour that has positive influence and impact on wellbeing, motivation, and psychological health and safety at work. He challenges workplace leaders to connect the dots and not take the pedal off the gas in workplace mental health.

Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is the support provided to a person who may be experiencing a decline in their mental well-being or are in a mental health crisis. Host Kim MacDonald talks with Alison Butler a workplace mental health first aid trainer who has trained hundreds of employees in workplaces in Atlantic Canada and across the country. The Mental Health Commission of Canada reports that 1 in 5 Canadians experience a mental health problem within a given year and 35% of working Canadians are suffering from burnout. While we often know a lot about physical illness, knowledge and understanding about mental health and substance use problems have not caught up. This lack of understanding leads to fear and negative attitudes towards individuals living with these problems. In this episode we explore the purpose and role of mental health first aid training in the workplace environment and how it can open the door to deeper conversations of change.

This episode explores the need for leaders and managers to broaden their understanding of inclusion, equity and diversity and question assumptions and conclusions when it comes to employees at work. Diversity does not always have a recognizable visible indicator. Host Kim MacDonald speaks to Wilma Li, founder of Business Knowledge Integration Inc. about her personal journey into EDI and her focus on advocating for interpersonal understanding and intercultural intelligence. EDI is evolving and better metrics of diversity and inclusion are required to reduce harms and business risks and create greater psychologically healthy and safe workplaces.

Dr. Manju Varma is a nationally recognized expert in anti-discrimination. Before her current position at the Nova Scotia Community College, Dr. Varma was the Anti-Racism Commissioner of New Brunswick. Dr. Varma also serves on the Board of the Canada Race Relations Foundation.

Psych Health & Safety Podcast Canada host, Kim MacDonald and Dr. Varma talk about her path from school teacher to anti-racism, human rights work and equity, inclusion and diversity specialist. She shares the challenges and opportunities in the work and offers advice on how to create workplace and classroom psychological health and safety, protection from harms to mental health, and the important role education and communications play in managing issues of equity, inclusion, fairness and safety.

Whenever we think about workplace processes and systems that help employers manage psychosocial risks and hazards to mental health at work, one area that is especially sensitive and connected to that process is how to manage internal disputes, complaints or workplace conditions that rise to the level of a workplace investigation.

In this episode host Kim MacDonald talks to labour and employment lawyer and workplace investigator Andrea MacNevin, JD, about the purpose, outcomes and challenges in the work, how they can be trauma-informed and some of details that are key to the findings of fact.