A key action of the Employee Mental Health Strategy is to enhance the knowledge and skills of leaders/supervisors to create the conditions in the work environment to positively influence psychological health and safety.
As part of this key action, the University of Windsor has designed a leadership development program in mental health and psychological safety to foster a common level of awareness and understanding of mental health, reduce stigma, and build a psychologically healthy and safe workplace culture.
This program consists of two components:
- Two self-directed modules available via Brightspace: Understanding Mental Health and Understanding Psychological Safety
- In-person workshops on Mental Health and Psychological Safety to explore content in more depth. Leaders must complete the two self-directed modules before attending in-person workshops.
To get started with the self-directed modules, access Brightspace using your UWindsor ID.
Register for in-person workshops here A description of each in-person workshop is below:
Enhancing Mental Health Literacy
This in-person workshop builds on the material from the self-directed Understanding Mental Health module to explore
- the role and impact of trauma
- principles and practices for building a trauma-informed workplace
- the intersections of trauma-informed practices with equity, diversity, inclusion, and Decolonization.
- the role of leaders and organizations in reducing mental health stigma and creating a caring, supportive, and empathetic culture
- how to address mental health proactively, thoughtfully, and strategically within a team
- how to recognize the early signs of mental distress
- establishing boundaries
- practical strategies for starting a conversation around mental health
- guidelines for an appropriate conversation should an employee disclose a mental health concern, including thoughts of suicide
- self-care and available tools/resources to support mental well-being
Psychological Safety for Leaders
Building upon the self-guided module on "Understanding Psychological Safety," this live, interactive, and immersive workshop will elevate your competency and confidence to build psychological safety within your team. Research consistently demonstrates that psychological safety is the most important predictor of team effectiveness, and is absolutely critical for team learning, innovation, and excellence. Especially post pandemic, the ability to build psychological safety within a team has become a must have for leaders, as the pace of change and complexity of our dynamic business environment has increased. This workshop will equip and empower you to elevate your impact as a leader.