How longer-term CBT led to sustainable return-to-work outcomes
Judith Plotkin, vice-president of strategic growth with Homewood Human Solutions, described three case studies of successful return-to-work measures. “What I’m going to tell you is so intuitive,” she said. “It’s what you already know.”
Armed with the knowledge that depression accounts for about half of mental health claims, Plotkin and her colleagues built a CBT component into a client’s return-to-work program. They took a simple approach, offering 12 to 20 CBT sessions to claimants. The result? Employees returned to work more quickly, spending nine fewer days on short-term disability and 25 fewer days on long-term disability.
Intrigued by this outcome, Plotkin says her team went a step further in a subsequent intervention, adding an upfront diagnostic assessment to the program. The intervention brought 88% of participants back to a “work-readiness level of psychological functioning,” she said. What’s more, 63% went back to work and were still there six months later. The program cost $2,400 per case. Adding a workplace conflict component to the mix brought absenteeism and presenteeism rates down still further.
“Employees don’t need to languish without proper treatment,” said Plotkin. “There are cost-effective ways to get them assessed and treated so they’ll successfully return to work. A suitable duration of CBT is one of those ways.”
Mental health M.A.P.: Helping those living with mental illness navigate to wellness
Employers can now steer their employees to an interactive online resource developed by the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario. The association’s former executive director, Karen Liberman, created the Mental Health M.A.P. (My Action Plan) program to “empower people affected by mood disorders to take control of their recovery.”
According to Liberman, M.A.P. will help people to:
- get an accurate diagnosis;
- learn more about their illness;
- identify appropriate healthcare and support needs;
- communicate effectively with family members and with people in the workplace, at school and in the community;
- create personal plans to assist in recovery; and
- navigate solutions, put supports in place and monitor progress.
“Your recovery is not my recovery,” said Liberman, who lived with severe depression for 10 years. “That’s why every M.A.P. recovery plan is personalized.”
Users can work through 11 self-contained modules, keep a journal, monitor their moods and behaviours, and solicit advice about the stages of recovery from coaches who have lived through mental illness themselves. “The people we consulted told us that they’d had enough of the ‘white coats’ and that any experts we put on the site had better not be preachy or intimidating.”
Liberman concluded her presentation by urging employers to encourage their workers to use the site (which is free of charge). “They need to know that mental illnesses can be treated and that people can get their lives back.” For more information, visit mymentalhealthmap.ca.
Canada’s current health landscape
Why do employees fail to show up at work? Among myriad root causes, health issues rank high, said Karen Seward, executive vice-president of marketing and business development with Morneau Shepell. “And a large part of our health stems from our environment, including the environment at work,” she said.
Findings from a Conference Board of Canada survey, which Seward cited in her presentation, suggest that today’s workplace environments leave something to be desired. Consider the following findings:
- Only 26% of surveyed individuals felt their supervisor effectively managed their mental health issues.
- Only 22% received information about mental health from their employer.
- Forty-four percent of managers had no training on how to manage employees with mental health issues.
- Just over half (56%) of those who required accommodations for mental health issues received them in a timely manner.
“If someone has a heart attack, the employer sends flowers,” Seward said. “Do you think the employee who returns from a mental health leave gets those flowers?” Because of the continuing “hush” around the topic, “[more than] half of employees fear they would lose promotion opportunities by revealing their mental health issues,” she added. To help combat the stigma, Seward proposed the term brain health as an alternative to mental health.
In Seward’s view, solutions to the problem consist largely of “things we already know but aren’t doing,” such as flexible work arrangements, along with the old-fashioned virtues of empathy, support and respect. “If an employee starts to have emotional outbursts, which is often a sign of deteriorating mental health, the employer can step in before it spirals out of control,” she said.
Employers should “look at ways to integrate existing problems, even if multiple vendors are involved,” Seward added. The final piece of the puzzle is to “educate employees on how to interact with the programs. If we want them to do things differently, we have to make sure they know about the workplace resources available to them.”