Canadian HR Strategy

23 putting them in," said Suzanne Bailey, a more than 25-year veteran of the CAF who helped develop the program. " en we recognized that it's not fair to the soldiers to give them all of this informa- tion and teach them these skills before they get on a plane and go into a war zone. We need to actually layer it in throughout their career from the day they join to the day they retire — and also make it available to their families." e program uses military-specifi c lan- guage to give CAF members the ability to eff ectively communicate with their families before and a er deployment. When developing Road to Mental Readiness, Bailey and her team consulted with soldiers and ex-soldiers to determine what they would like to know about mental health. " ey said, 'We don't care what you call all the diff erent illnesses, we don't care how many there are; we want to know what it looks like, what it feels like and how to rec- ognize it,'" she said. Continuum model Within the program, the CAF developed what it calls the mental health continuum model, which divides mental health into four categories and assigns each a colour. e healthiest end of the model is adaptive coping (green) followed by mild and re- versible distress or functional impairment (yellow). e model then distinguishes more se- vere, persistent injury or impairment (or- ange) and fi nally identifi es clinical illnesses and disorders requiring more concentrated medical care (red). "We're not either all healthy or all ill — there's a continuum," said Bailey. "In fact, many of us function quite well in the yellow zone. e intent of this one is to normalize the fact that people move back and forth, that we can be aff ected by mental illness, but also to get the message out that you can recover from mental illness." e model is intended to encourage peo- ple to get help if they feel as though they may be moving into the orange or red categories. It also teaches people the behaviours of men- tal health problems that can be observed in others and what action can be taken. When Bailey teaches the model to se- nior military leaders, she is frequently asked whether yellow is normal. "I guess when you work 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, yellow is quite normal," she said, comparing it to the long hours spent in workplaces across the country. "But if we notice that we're kind of strad- dling the line between orange and yellow, that's probably an indicator that we've kind of pushed the limits a bit too far." Comparing mental illness to physical illness is one way the continuum educates CAF families about mental health. Falling under the yellow category can be equated to a sprained ankle, said Bailey. Increasing sleep, eating properly and exercising can improve mental health and move individuals back into the green zone. "If you're in the orange and red zones, that's probably the broken leg equivalent of mental health," she said. "Not many of us would try to Google and treat our own broken leg, yet with men- tal health, there is that temptation to fi x it on our own because then nobody will have to know… but that's where professional help is most eff ective and (decreases) the chances of recurring episodes in the future." e Mental Health Commission of Can- ada (MHCC) has already adapted CAF's program into its own program, Opening Minds. " ey heard that our levels of stigma had decreased signifi cantly in the military," said Bailey. "Some of our surveys have indicated that only about six per cent of Canadian Forces members report that they would think less of a buddy or a colleague who was aff ected by mental health issues." Trial implementation e MHCC planned a trial implementa- tion with Alberta Health Services and the Calgary Police Service in September and a new initiative, e Working Mind, will be tested in Nova Scotia sometime this fall with Capital District Health Authority and Nova Scotia Community College. Because the model is simple, it can eas- ily be applied to various workplaces, said Bailey. "We don't focus on specifi c illnesses and diagnoses," she said. "It normalizes that we all go through ups and downs in our lives and if you take the right steps early on, you can recover." One of the biggest challenges with ad- dressing mental health in the workplace is the fact there are now a number of genera- tions with very diff erent views on the issue, said Spinks. "If you're part of the boomer genera- tion or older, your expectation is that there should be some kind of standard. Every- body would be treated the same," she said. "On to the '80s and '90s, everybody started to expect some choice. is is where we start talking about fl exible work ar- rangements and alternative career paths. Now we've got the younger generation where it's all about customization." Employers need to think about mental health like they do coff ee, said Spinks. Em- ployees 45 years and older would have had expectations met in their early career if they were served black coff ee at a meeting. Mov- ing into the 1980s and 1990s, employees expected some choice: cream, milk, sugar, sweetener. "Today's young generation is the tall-va- nilla-latte-double-shot-no-foam-soy gen- eration and they expect the same custom- ization in their programs, in their policies and in their career paths." While it may be a struggle, employers need to recognize diversity in the work- place and adapt the way they address men- tal health, said Spinks. "NOT MANY OF US WOULD TRY TO GOOGLE AND TREAT OUR OWN BROKEN LEG,YET WITH MENTAL HEALTH, THERE IS THAT TEMPTATION TO FIX IT ON OUR OWN BECAUSE THEN NOBODY WILL HAVE TO KNOW." PHOTO: COMBAT CAMERA

• Cover