B724 Mental Health - Free Assessment Answer

Answer:

Part A

Development of a successful mental health and wellness program has become a top priority for organizations from different domains since such programs hold the potential to manage the psychological health of employee. The same is essential since management of psychological health indicates that wellbeing of employees is augmented and productivity is increased. An organization must be considering the best available strategy for implementation upon deciphering the needs of the organization. The basic components of such as program are health-related policies, creation of an environment supporting good health, and encouragement of active participation. A number of organizations in the recent past have implemented such programs for the employees. Following are the details of two different organization’s workplace mental health and wellness programs (Goetzel et al., 2018).

Houston Methodist- Houston Methodist is a leading medical centre in Texas that has seven locations around Houston. The company joined the Fitbit Wellness community in the year 2014. The Fitbit community aims to create internal wellness programs for the employees of different companies and harness the power of fitness for enabling healthy employees. Since its association with the Fitbit Wellness community, Houston Methodist has supplied around 11,000 devices for medical aid to 4000 employees. Employees are offered mental health screening along with other screening tests for health and fitness after they are categorized into groups such as pregnant, high BMI and nicotine-positive. Fitbit wellness has permitted the employees of the organization to take part in different initiatives for wellness, such as walking. On the occasion of National Walking Day, the employees had walked about 10000 steps. In addition, the hospital has a ‘Pick Up Your Pace’ program which supports employees with rewards for engaging in the wellness programs. It has been found that the wellness program brings in improvement in employees health in addition of supporting office camaraderie. By joining the community employees are able to interact with each other and socialize, thereby augmenting their mental wellness. Since the implementation of the program, the company has ranked in the Fortune list of ‘Best companies to work for’, and the employees are proud of the achievement. 

SSQ, a leading Canadian financial and life insurance company is known to develop a program called ‘Health Wise Health Passport’. The notable and immersive program is made accessible to all employees who have the urge to take part in wellness programs including mental health. The program offers employees help with mental wellbeing to combat depression, anxiety and stress. The services available are counseling, day treatment, and substance abuse treatment. The program has cultural considerations and provides culturally sensitive care approaches to the employees. Rewards and prizes are given out for those who are able to meet the health goals. The company has recently won the Goodlife’s Health and Wellness Leadership award for the immense efforts taken. The improvements in the mental wellbeing of employees are reflected in the efficient work that has been done (Richard, 2014).

Part B

Working as a part of a team responsible for development and implementation of a workplace mental health and wellness program would be a good opportunity to put an employee Assistance Program (EAP) in place. The members of the development team would be the CEO of the organization, the program coordinator and referrals. The purpose of the EAP would be to offer help to all employees for resolution of challenges that affect their work to a considerable extent. The objective would be to refer employees to external agencies for solving mental health and wellbeing problems faced within the organization. For identification of the key needs and expectations of the program it would be necessary to conduct a survey with the employees of the setting for understands the areas where they need help with. The survey need to be conducted in different points of time for understanding the changing needs of the employees. The target audience would be all employees from different levels within the organizational hierarchy (Moll et al., 2018).

 The program would have components such as counseling on job stress, professional relationship issues, harassment at workplace work-life balance, financial advice, weight control and substance abuse. An EAP cell would be created through which employees would be able to reach out to the referral agent. In case there is no provision for internal referral agent, it would be crucial to refer to the employee to an external referral agent. When the EAP provider is contacted, a confidential record would be opened. The provider would be collecting all detailed information and processing the referral. It would be justified to deliver the program throughout the year. The program would be made culturally sensitive by maintaining confidentiality of the employees and providing them with safe and secured environment. The effectiveness of the program would be evaluated by carrying out a survey with the employees would take taken part in the program. This is to be done on an annual basis for identifying gaps in effectiveness o f the program (Adams, 2014).

References

Adams, L. Y. (2014). Workplace mental health manual for nurse managers. Springer Publishing Company.

Goetzel, R. Z., Roemer, E. C., Holingue, C., Fallin, M. D., McCleary, K., Eaton, W., ... & Braga, M. (2018). Mental Health in the Workplace: A Call to Action Proceedings from the Mental Health in the Workplace: Public Health Summit. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 60(4), 322.

Moll, S. E., VandenBussche, J., Brooks, K., Kirsh, B., Stuart, H., Patten, S., & MacDermid, J. C. (2018). Workplace Mental Health Training in Health Care: Key Ingredients of Implementation. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 0706743718762100.

Richard, M. A. (2014). Employee assistance programs: Wellness/enhancement programming. Charles C Thomas Publisher.