Christina Fuda
Understanding mental illness in the workplace and training staff to help people showing signs of it was the central topic addressed by an expert in the field as part of a Global Automakers of Canada in-person and livestreamed event in Toronto this week.
The event, which included Universus as one of the sponsors, was titled On The Road to Resilience: Mental Health Awareness for Automotive Professionals. It took place at Dentons Law Office. Dentons was also a sponsor. The event, which was livestreamed, was attended by more than 100 people from the automotive industry.
Christina Fuda, President and Co-Founder of The Mental Health Consultants, provided the keynote address and moderated a panel discussion.
The panelists were: David Adams, President and CEO of Global Automakers of Canada; Mark Holland, MP of Ajax and former Minister of Health of Canada; and Ditty Garg, HR Senior Manager of Subaru Canada. All three shared stories of dealing with personal trauma in their lives.
Fuda, who is also the Senior Mental Health Training Strategist at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences, noted she has done external training with “tens of thousands” of people in the automotive industry, the power workers sector and healthcare sector. She asked the crowd to do a self evaluation and then asked who is at risk of getting mental illness?
“Every single one of us in this room,” said Fuda pointedly.
She said 50 per cent percent of the population will develop a mental illness by the time they turn 40.
“I hear the other 50 per cent of us get it after 40,” Fuda said with a laugh. “We’re all going to get it, guys. We have to stop treating mental illness as separate from physical illness. They’re all connected. They are all the same things. When one area of the body gets sick, the other one gets sick.”
Moreover, she said people with mental illnesses do not receive the same understanding or empathy, because they don’t show physical signs as someone that has gone through an accident or has cancer.
Fuda provided some sobering statistics about mental health, indicating that depression is the number one cause of people taking time off from work, surpassing heart disease. She said if mental health is not addressed in the economy, it is a huge safety issue and can lead to accidents.
Christina Fuda, Mark Holland, Ditty Garg, and David Adams
“To me, this is the number one reason we need to have these conversations,” said Fuda. “When somebody has gone through something the night before, maybe with a family member or somebody at home experiencing mental illnesses, how great are they going to come into work the next day? How good are they going to be able to focus on their job, and that’s where accidents can happen,” Fuda said.
She said in the Canadian economy, $51 billion is being lost every single year because of untreated mental illnesses — half of which is in the workplace. “Every single day in our country, about half a million Canadians cannot go to work because of a mental health issue … and this is such a big thing that we need to address,” said Fuda.
She said a high stress work environment can lead to not just accidents, but also turnover and other factors, which lower productivity and increase cost.
“The more we invest into our employees’ mental health, the more you will actually see a decrease in cost because now you have a healthy, happy workforce rather than one that is burned out, overloaded with stress and not able to function,” said Fuda.
She said she works with management on how to better support their employees and how to better recognize mental health issues. She added 65% of management would like to know how to have conversations about mental health with employees because it will help make their job easier.
“Let’s be real, most managers in industry are not mental health experts,” said Fuda. “Not knowing how to recognize employees with mental illness is a huge detriment.” She said when talking to someone showing signs of mental illness, avoid the word should.
“The second you tell somebody what they should do around their mental illness, they’re going to shut down, they’re going to get defensive,” said Fuda. “We teach people how to rephrase the conversation.”
She said by saying to someone you believe is undergoing mental health issues and you want to help out, it’s a totally different conversation and is going to have a totally different feel to it than by telling the person what they should do.
Fuda said if anyone has a person in their life, whether it’s a colleague, employee or a loved one and you’re not sure if you need to take them to the hospital because you think they are severely depressed or have mentioned suicide, dialing 988 — the Canada-wide crisis line — can truly save a life. She said in emergency situations, 911 can still be used.
She said the stigma of mental health illness is the “elephant in the room,” because people don’t want to talk about it. “Let’s not forget what mental illness is at the end of the day,” said Futa. “Mental illness is your brain, the most important organ you have, and it is literally doing everything for you.”
She said improvements in technology and science have helped to identify mental illness and treatment, something that wasn’t available 20 or 40 years ago, and which led sufferers to drink or other addictions to cope with their pain.
“We don’t have to do that anymore, folks, if we need to talk about it,” said Fuda. “We have 80 per cent effectiveness in treatment. The more we know, the more we’re learning. Where we’re at now (with technology), it’s getting ever better. I can’t wait to see where mental illness treatment gets to in the next 10 years. We know about it, we can see it, we can do something about it.”
She said the way to recognize someone with mental illness is to look for changes in behaviour, not showing up to work or showing signs of loss of interest or enjoyment in their life. She added that a lot of people confuse sadness with depression.
“Sadness is a sign of depression, but sadness is also very healthy for us,” said Fuda. “One of the biggest signs I would encourage people to look for is the person no longer experiencing joy? Have they lost interest in things they love to do? Look for things like addictive behaviour, withdrawing from friends and family. These are going to be some of the biggest things you are going to see. Physical health is going to change as well, people experiencing headaches, back pains, heart palpitations and chest pains, rapid heartbeat, hyperventilation. All of these can be signs of mental illness.”
She said affected people can mask things, but it’s harder to hide behaviour. She said signs of someone experiencing mental health issues are over-worrying or expressing feelings of helplessness. Another example is someone posting negative things on social media or suicidal thoughts.
“This is such a big reason we have to have these conversations,” said Fuda. “It’s very difficult to compare suicide rates to 50 years ago. People didn’t talk about it. People hide it.”
