Bottom Line Conference 2018 - Day One

Bottom Line Conference – March 13th - Day One

This was my first time attending the Canadian Mental Health Association’s (CMHA) Bottom Line Conference March 13-14 at the Westin Bayshore Hotel.

The conference was amazing. I took almost 70 pages of notes and am bringing back a lot of information to share with our local.

The day started off with a welcoming from Bev Gutray, the Director of CMHA BC. 400+ attendees in the house and the 15^th anniversary of Bottom Line and the 100^thanniversary of CMHA. Over the past 15 years, the highlights are:

• Partnerships with labour/business/government/non-profit/public sector
• Honouring lived experience as expertise
• 2000+ attendees
• Many organizations are now talking about mental health in workplace

“The power of personal disclosure.”  Wow, did that ever resonate with me. She warned us that we would learn, laugh and cry and asked each one of us to bring at least one thing back to our worksites.

Opening

Marissa Nahanee – Squamish Nation brought greetings on behalf of the Squamish Nation. She set the tone by starting us off with the “greeting of the day song.” She then got all of us to participate in the song left us with the meditation “I approve of myself.”  We took all of our imaginary baggage and hung it up outside of the hotel to create the space in our minds and hearts to fully participate in the conference.

Panel : Perspectives on a New Workplace

• Melissa Mongoven – Founder, Event Savvy (event planner)
• Jeff Morgan – Public Employee and Staff Rep
• Homan Sanaie – Project Manager, Yellow Pencil

This panel discussion started off with three people in various lines of work, sharing their stories of their struggles with mental health. They all shared their fears of the stigma that surrounds mental health and then came to realize the power of personal disclosure.

Once they all started talking to friends, family and mental health professionals, they were able to unpack what was going on and start on a plan to move forward. Self-awareness of their own self-stigmatization seemed to be the turning point for each of them on their path to healing.  They all have different coping mechanisms whether it was going outside for fresh air, finding a creative outlet like filmmaking, or riding motorcycles – with a lot of hard work and the support of their friends and families they have been able to manage their mental health and have become advocates for other in turn.

They all had great insight on how workplaces and employers could support their employees’ mental health. Eliminating the stigma around stress leave is a great first step. Creating a culture of understanding regarding mental health is another – when coworkers feel safe to have discussions about how they are feeling or how things are going for them, they are more likely to reach out for or accept help when needed.

Women Challenging the Workplace – Michele Hollins, Justice of the Queen’s Bench

Michele Hollins is a Justice of the Queen’s Bench in Alberta and spoke candidly and openly about her struggles with mental health. She’s in a profession that is highly competitive and the higher up on the proverbial food chain you go, the more pressure there is to perform and the more men are able to advance quicker because they don’t have to take time off to raise children. She put it out on front street.

Her stress and anxiety manifested itself in a number of ways. She stopped eating and exercising. She stopped interacting with people which meant even if she were at an event or at work, there was minimal engagement. Work became more difficult and some days, even when she could get out of the house, she would just go into her office, close the door and cry. Then she would berate herself for feeling the way she did. She stressed the importance of nopt doing that and the dangerous temptation to assess their reason is “good enough” and a DIY approach to managing your mental health just gets you into the cycle of beating yourself up.

It took one interaction to change her life. She got into an elevator with her Associate Director and that woman asked her the question: “are you ok?” Justice Hollins said she lost it and the response was “well, you’re not ok” and encouraged and helped her get professional help. 

She talked about the legal profession and the barriers regarding mental health challenges. Lawyers solve problems and need to appear confident and competent and there’s not a lot of room for “i don’t feel well today.” She made the correlation between gender and stress because of the higher levels of emotional labour and unpaid labour women in general take on in their home lives. When you’ve got so much going on at home, the last thing women take on is professional advancement which is why the numbers for the female partners in law firms hovers around 20% (when law schools graduate 50% each year). Junior partners are in the situation where it’s hard to admit any sign of perceived weakness becuse they want to keep their jobs.

She is hopeful though. Millenials are more egalitarian in their approach to household labour and parenting/care giving. Short term solutions might just be starting from a place of empathy to build that culture where mental health is taken seriously because you never know when kindness can save a life.

Living and Working in a Digital World – Rob Cottingham – Leadership Communications Strategist

This presentation was focused on how technology has changed our workplace.  The advent of smart phones has made it possible for your workplace to “hitch a ride” home with you. Boundaries between work life and home life have become blurred where we bring home to work and work home. The temptation to check in is far too much for most people to bear and the constant buzzing and notification from various apps has created digital addiction.

App developers are ensuring that their products are addictive. Addiction isn’t just a metaphor anymore – it’s real and neuroscientists are starting to unpack and induce addictive digital behaviours for research sakes.

Technology isn’t all bad though – it’s created outlets for people to find solidarity in their struggles – just look to Bell’s “Let’s Talk” campaign or the #metoo movement where people have found courage in their anonymity to come forward.

He left us with a couple important things to think about.

• Reminder to see the people behind the metrics and algorithms
• Belief that networks have the power to transform and heal through storytelling that you wouldn’t encounter otherwise
• Connection and compassion – people are relentlessly human and social who yearn to connect with others

The Meaning of #metoo – Raji Mangat – Lawyer, West Coast LEAF

#metoo is an online social movement to tell truths about sexual violence/harassment – so how did it become a movement?

People were skeptical at first – public disclosures of something so deeply personal without viable support – what’s going to happen next? #sowhat? #whocares ?

This has encouraged broader conversations on how power is negotiated in our workplaces, schools and communities. Navigating the new workplace means that we have to consider that this kind of topic is more cognitively complex, the time pressures, team based approached and technology. Employees are expected to do more with less and reorgs more and more common.

At te end of the day, power is at the heart of harassment and how it manifests and is discussed in the workplace is most important. It really made me reflect on how important unions are and that the protections we can provide workers is in everyone’s best interest.

Work-Life Balance: Rhetoric vs Reality – Dr. Linda Duxbury, Carleton University

Dr. Duxbury’s session was looking at surveys and data about work-life balance, something that wasn’t really researched until 1991.

While the main stressors in people’s lives haven’t changed much some things have come to the forefront:

• Care-giver strain:
• many people are of the sandwich generation where they are taking care of their kids and their elderly parents
• Many people are choosing not to have children
• Elder care is more complicated than before with people living longer – but they also live longer with conditions like Alzheimer’s and dementia
• What benefits are there for eldercare – child care benefits exists but nothing for elder dependents
• Family interference at work
• Work interference with home

• Millenials want hobbies and sleep

In general employee well-being has declined:

• Perceived stress
• Depressed mood
• Life satisfaction
• Absenteeism
• Health problems, mental health/emotional problems, childcare, eldercare, fatigue to name a few..

This information wasn’t particularly new – we encounter so much of this in the union office in our day to day work. I did find her presentation style quite distracting but I think I got the the gist of this session.

Workshops: “Building Resilient Teams” and “Compassion Fatigue on the Front Line”

Building Resilient Teams – Mary-Ann Baynton, Great West Life Centre for Mental Health in the Workplace

This workshop focused on how we can better deal with workplace stressors and traumatic incidents while building confidence and coping mechanisms to deal with difficult situations. We talked in depth about things like:

• Burnout:
• issues with boundaries
• What happens when you don’t have the physical and mental banked energy reserves to deal with issues?
• Feeling that their work is dismissed or minimized
• Blindsided by betrayal

• Traumatic incidents:
• Should’ve/could’ve

• Conflict/bullying:
• Affects identity of both sides
• Systemic problem that needs to be PREVENTED because the damage is done by the time a complaint is filed
• Bystanders

What is resilience? It’s the combination of problem solving, social support and preparation. If you want to be resilient you have to be able to give and receive social support (and get out of your head if you think your or your problems are a burden on someone else).

She covered various tools and tricks to build resiliency in yourself and your teams in the workplace:

• Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – the ability to manage one’s own emotions/reactions as well as the ability to recognize someone else is having an emotional reaction
• Communication styles: assertive, passive, passive aggressive, aggressive
• Awareness – look for when it’s time to take a step back and look for self care

• Gatherings:
• Team huddle – quick gathering on site to find out what they’ve accomplished at work and what’s currently on their plate and is help needed
• Should be no longer than 10 minutes
• Helps to take away assumptions so everyone knows who’s doing what
• Mistake meeting – opportunity to admit recent mistakes to avoid the blame game to eradicate the culture of fear
• Meant for people to learn from it
• Address it soon after so that it doesn’t fester

“Compassion Fatigue on the Front Line” – Dr.Joti Samra, Clinical Psychologist and Andrew Herfst, MA, RCC

This workshop was geared towards something I know I personally encounter and that’s vicarious trauma and cumulative stress  while supporting other people. Very few people contact us in the union office when they are happy. Often we are dealing with people in distress, who are upset or angry or are in need of some emotional support.

This session was helpful in helping me identify my own stressors and then how to cope with them.

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