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Transforming Workplace Mental Health: Insights and Innovations · Authentic Living

• 0:01
  Welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne, a place where we have conscious conversations
• 0:08
  about things that really matter in our lives.
• 0:12
  And now here's your host, Roxanne Durhaj.
• 0:38
  Thanks for tuning in to Authorization.
• 0:40
  Hi, This is Ron Santor Hodge.
• 0:42
  Thanks for hanging out with us again.
• 0:43
  Today, I have a special colleague is
• 0:46
  a keynote speaker,
• 0:47
  and Barb and I've been and coach for a very
• 0:50
  long time.
• 0:51
  Barb was a senior leadership at iplich.com/specialhealthstrategy.
• 0:55
  And Barbara's been on the podcast Unauthentic.
• 0:58
  Believe she was Roxanne.
• 0:59
  Once, and then she helped me with my book launch two years ago, which was amazing.
• 1:04
  So, Barb, welcome back.
• 1:05
  Oh, it's a pleasure to be here.
• 1:07
  I'm so excited to be in conversation with you again.
• 1:10
  So what we thought we would do is have a conversation because it's Mental Health Week,
• 1:16
  starting the week of May 5, and such an important topic that I think is being talked
• 1:22
  about a lot, but I think what we need to do is to really drill down to the experts that are
• 1:28
  dealing with it related to the workplace, and Barb is one of them.
• 1:31
  Barb is the CEO of Aura Well-being and started this company because there were certain
• 1:37
  expertise and gaps in services for mental health that needed to be addressed.
• 1:42
  And herself and her COO, Michelle Arsenault, started this amazing business.
• 1:46
  And it's gone almost it's about two years ago.
• 1:49
  A year and a half.
• 1:50
  Almost a year and a half from the official launch.
• 1:53
  Right.
• 1:53
  And I think when we started talking was almost you were incepting it about two years ago.
• 1:57
  Correct.
• 1:58
  So, Barb, let's talk a little bit about the birth of Avora and maybe even share with people
• 2:03
  what the word avora means because I like the significance of it, but I love when you tell
• 2:08
  the story.
• 2:08
  Oh, okay.
• 2:10
  So great, thank you.
• 2:11
  The birth I'll start with and then I'll get to the naming because you first have to give birth
• 2:15
  and then you name your baby.
• 2:17
  The birth came out of a realization and it wasn't an immediate realization.
• 2:21
  It had been progressing for a couple of years actually.
• 2:24
  I had been a chief clinician of theoretically the world's largest EAP company and a Canadian
• 2:31
  company.
• 2:31
  I had worked in that company for twenty eight years and had been, as you said, a leader for
• 2:36
  many years.
• 2:37
  And what we were seeing, and just to say, there was an enormous evolution in technology in my
• 2:46
  tenure, and that has been a very exciting time.
• 2:50
  And I certainly was part of that and was recognized.
• 2:54
  I was awarded by Digital Health Canada as one of the top women leaders in digital health.
• 3:01
  But I felt that digital health was a catalyst, it was also compressing and depersonalizing
• 3:09
  some of the mental health that people needed.
• 3:12
  And I certainly believe in self directed learning and self directed help and CBT
• 3:18
  methodologies, but I was seeing the compression of the service and people falling through the
• 3:24
  cracks.
• 3:25
  And I had been very much involved in saying, hey, some people need more.
• 3:30
  That moderate to severe category of people who have a struggle need more.
• 3:35
  And there are people who have ebbs and flows in their mental well-being.
• 3:39
  And these are lifelong journeys.
• 3:41
  They are lifelong where to maintain our resilience and our well-being, we have to be
• 3:45
  very focused.
• 3:46
  And I was seeing, had committed my life to short term solution focused, but I was saying,
• 3:52
  Hey, there's more to be done here.
• 3:55
  There is more people not getting what they need.
• 3:58
  So, I took the opportunity and I was also inspired by workplace culture, which you and I
• 4:02
  have talked about before.
• 4:04
  In this clinical specific area, I took the opportunity to say, I think I want to do
• 4:10
  something different.
• 4:12
  And certainly with Michel Arsenault's expertise in gender diversity and his understanding and
• 4:18
  appreciation of managing critical events or disruptive events in the workplace, we felt we
• 4:24
  could join our passions and create a different type of workplace well-being.
• 4:29
  And so, AVORA was started and began, and it really is A for Arsenault, V for Veeder, our
• 4:35
  two names, but a new path, a new direction, and a new direction for well-being.
• 4:41
  So, that was the vision.
• 4:44
  And you always start something and then if you're open, you learn a lot.
• 4:49
  And we've learned a lot and we've been interacting with a lot of very skilled people
• 4:54
  to really evolve and keep this vision in the forefront of our development.
• 5:01
  I mean, obviously, in the path of EAP, we've seen an evolution, like you said, and
• 5:05
  digitization has also shifted kind of when how people can intervene, recognizing that, like
• 5:12
  you said, some people have bits and bytes, which might need some kind of intervention
• 5:18
  where they can kinda go off and do it on their own.
• 5:20
  But the what the crack that you were founding in the system was, in fact, the people that
• 5:26
  fall through, not the people that kinda pick up the course and go or maybe have a book or see a
• 5:31
  therapist ready short term.
• 5:33
  Let's talk a little bit about that inception of what you recognize within the workplace that
• 5:40
  was kind of being missed.
• 5:42
  Okay.
• 5:42
  You know the continuum mental health green, yellow, orange, red, right?
• 5:47
  Healthy is green, red you're on fire and you're struggling.
• 5:52
  Preventative mental health is where the investment has been and good on us.
• 5:56
  Good on the workplace, good on the Canadian government and our provincial governments to
• 6:00
  say prevention isn't critical.
• 6:03
  Get it early.
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  So a lot, a lot of investment was placed in that.
• 6:08
  There was an interesting report by Boston Consulting Group in 2022, who said, and it was
• 6:15
  bold, said 40% of the users who were trying to use EAP can't find it.
• 6:21
  They can't even find it.
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  It's buried.
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  And when they get there, group that finally find it, 40% of those users are unhappy.
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  They didn't get what they need.
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  That's big.
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  That's big.
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  And fifty percent of those who use it drop out on a digital platform.
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  Mark Attritch talks a lot about that in his research.
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  That user engagement is very low.
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  There's a lot of people and they're like me, they download an app, they use it for a second,
• 6:53
  and it's done.
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  And that's measured as engagement.
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  So, the front side, you see this big funnel.
• 6:59
  You see a lot of people, trying to reach, maybe engaging, but the follow through is very, very
• 7:07
  low.
• 7:09
  I've created this model describing the benefits because I think they're good metaphors.
• 7:13
  I often refer to EAP, and it's harsh, as a mirage.
• 7:18
  And remember, I was the chief clinician in a very large global company and I'm calling that
• 7:25
  service a mirage.
• 7:27
  And why?
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  Just to tag onto what Boston Consulting Group said is that if you find it and you finally get
• 7:35
  there, it's not enough.
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  It disappears quick for someone who's really struggling with a more complex mental health,
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  something that's sort of past, I'm feeling bad, or I've been struggling a little bit.
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  As you go in that continuum and you move into yellow and orange and hopefully not red, you
• 7:56
  need way more than a couple of sessions.
• 8:00
  And in the evolution of the work that I was doing, I was seeing we had business pressure to
• 8:05
  try to do things more compressed.
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  When I started and you started many years ago, we were working on an average of six sessions
• 8:14
  per employee who came.
• 8:17
  This had been compressed, in some cases, to two hours.
• 8:23
  Yes, I remember there were at times directives to get it down to say 3.2 or something.
• 8:29
  And I'd be like, okay, hold on.
• 8:31
  You know, with our clinical backgrounds, that means that's hello, potentially hello again,
• 8:37
  try to assess and then you're out of time.
• 8:39
  So for the average person that's coming in, Barb, to deal with a concern and they're
• 8:44
  relatively psychologically and emotionally healthy, they might be fine to kind of go along
• 8:50
  the way and get a resource.
• 8:51
  But the people that you're talking about are the people that are costing companies the most
• 8:56
  money.
• 8:57
  I call it the cyclical kind of people that are doing the turnstile, they're coming, they're
• 9:03
  going, they're getting some, they're coming back through, and what the cost is potentially
• 9:07
  to a company.
• 9:08
  Yeah, and I just want to finish off.
• 9:10
  I'm a big proponent of single session because some people only want one session.
• 9:15
  Some people will only want that.
• 9:17
  And you have to work where the individual who is coming to ask for help is at.
• 9:23
  And so, I don't necessarily believe more is better, but ensuring good quality evidence
• 9:31
  based care is critical, and ensuring that you are engaging in a meaningful way and
• 9:37
  understanding and appreciating the depths of the issue that the person is struggling with.
• 9:42
  And that's where a lot of the trauma informed practice comes into play.
• 9:45
  But let's go to the other side of that continuum, because I think, as I said earlier,
• 9:50
  there's been this big investment in preventative health.
• 9:53
  We can debate the quality of that and if we could do it better.
• 9:56
  But on this other side is the $6,300,000,000 spend in the workplace every year in Canada.
• 10:04
  Dollars Six Point Three Billion.
• 10:07
  And so that's that sick leave cost, long term, short term disability, that absence cost.
• 10:14
  And so if you're putting all this money into now that red side, it's not preventative, it's
• 10:23
  reactive.
• 10:24
  It's reactive.
• 10:25
  And the place where Michelle and I really felt we wanted to play was how do we give people
• 10:31
  more than that early intervention who have a more substantial issue and prevent some of that
• 10:37
  STD and LTD cost?
• 10:39
  And what you see in the disability world, and we have a lot of clients that we've worked with
• 10:44
  who are in short term disability, long term disability, and even clients who are trying to
• 10:48
  emerge into the workplace.
• 10:50
  And what you see is that in short term disability, two years, for those who have a
• 10:56
  mental health condition, they will return.
• 10:59
  Those employees are at risk to returning back.
• 11:02
  That cycle you were talking about, they're at risk to returning back to sick leave.
• 11:06
  And why is that?
• 11:08
  Why is that?
• 11:09
  Because that benefit, and I described this sort of I don't know if this is the best metaphor,
• 11:13
  but I describe it sort of as a mountain where we give people a lot of resources between the
• 11:21
  period of being off and coming back to work.
• 11:23
  But the way the benefits are designed is that once they return, they're on their own or they
• 11:29
  use a different type of benefit, right?
• 11:31
  They're often told, go and use your EAP now.
• 11:35
  Well, they did this big journey and the hardest part of the journey is actually that first
• 11:42
  period of time when they're returning, even past that gradual return to work.
• 11:47
  And I call this the job steady phase.
• 11:51
  We know this person.
• 11:52
  It's not hard to predict who these people are that are likely to return back.
• 11:56
  And if you work with the coordinators, they'll tell you we can predict who's going to be
• 12:01
  likely be vulnerable again.
• 12:04
  Because they don't have enough resources to keep them in that steady, resilient place.
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  And what are the issues that lead to relapse?
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  Some of it's environmental and situational.
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  They hit a roadblock.
• 12:19
  Some of it is getting on the right medication and being compliant to medication.
• 12:24
  And some of it is just wellness checks and reinforcing the skills they've learned to
• 12:31
  return to work and to build up routines.
• 12:35
  So, this period we've talked about, I call it mirage, and then I talked a little bit about
• 12:43
  this.
• 12:44
  Here's a block of service, but it ends, and it leaves you at potentially the hardest point in
• 12:51
  getting better.
• 12:52
  There is another benefit that I think with good intention, the workplace has invested a lot in
• 12:57
  psychological spend.
• 12:59
  And during COVID, we saw organizations just notching it up, 1,000, 2 thousand, not all
• 13:07
  because some people, some organizations still have like $500 I call that confetti because it
• 13:14
  sounds great.
• 13:16
  It's beautiful.
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  It's all sparkly.
• 13:18
  You get to spend it as you want.
• 13:19
  You're empowered.
• 13:21
  You throw it up just like confetti and you see where it lands.
• 13:25
  Well, you're in wait lists.
• 13:27
  You're in practices that are not targeted to workplace issues and return to work practice.
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  You're working in paradigms, a pyramid of supervision where you can pay less for a junior
• 13:39
  counselor.
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  They're junior, they don't have the depth and breadth.
• 13:43
  You have no quality control other than the regulatory bodies.
• 13:47
  But from an investment for the workplace, I'm not sure for that spend, people are always
• 13:54
  getting the help they need to support that continuity of care.
• 13:59
  Some do.
• 14:00
  Confetti can land in great places, but many times it's not.
• 14:05
  That's sort
• 14:06
  of In a way, Barb, when I listen to you, it sounds like kinda think about in recovery,
• 14:11
  right, when somebody goes on that are getting off a substance.
• 14:15
  And so it's like, oh, let's go to a person just that critical that they need inpatient, and the
• 14:21
  perception is they go in for a month.
• 14:24
  And they need to continue with services.
• 14:26
  But what often happens, and we know this, is that people might do it sporadically, like your
• 14:32
  confetti.
• 14:33
  And we know that people need to get through that first year.
• 14:36
  And oftentimes it's not about stopping substance, not unlike what you're saying about
• 14:41
  the mental health concerns.
• 14:43
  They might learn certain things, but they need that reinforcing concept.
• 14:47
  Is it relational?
• 14:48
  When you are triggered with a mental health concern.
• 14:51
  And my supervisor just maybe was giving me a directive and I perceived it as he or she was
• 14:56
  screaming at me.
• 14:57
  And now I'm having a quote unquote, a regressive kind of experience at work.
• 15:03
  You need the right supports at that time to be able to process that to say, well, fact, okay,
• 15:09
  let's talk about what happened with your supervisor or your leader.
• 15:13
  And was it objective or was it based on through that mental health lens that you struggle with?
• 15:18
  So I could see that subset that you're talking about being very instrumental.
• 15:21
  When you think about the determinants of health and well-being, work is a critical place.
• 15:29
  Sense of purpose, social connection, those are the two most important variables.
• 15:35
  Of course, money and structure is key too.
• 15:38
  Getting back to work is important in that because work can help you feel better.
• 15:46
  So teaching and supporting and helping people, even though they may not be perfectly well,
• 15:53
  work can create an environment to really practice and get better and better and stronger
• 15:57
  and learn to cope.
• 15:58
  Because often in mental health people who struggle with anxiety, depression, concurrent
• 16:04
  disorders, addiction issues, they will have periods of time where they will have to boot up
• 16:11
  they'll have highs and lows, ebbs and flows, and medication needs to be reviewed and support
• 16:18
  and strategies need to be revisited, just as you say.
• 16:22
  And to pull or to sort of say, now you're back at work, good, you did a good job, glad to have
• 16:30
  you.
• 16:31
  Now find a different resource in that EEP or go spend, you know, having this disruption in the
• 16:37
  care journey, I'm not sure it's a good thing.
• 16:39
  And I think when I talk to organizations, say, be careful how you're spending and make sure
• 16:45
  you've evaluated.
• 16:46
  If you've got everything leaning in this early intervention and you're sick leave, you miss
• 16:51
  this mill.
• 16:53
  And this mill is where you save.
• 16:56
  It's not about caring, it's about strategic decisions and ensuring that your workforce is
• 17:01
  resilient and well.
• 17:03
  This is an important investment.
• 17:05
  So you're not talking about a bigger spend, you're talking about reallocating the spend to
• 17:11
  address the needs of who you're missing when there are more complex critical concerns with
• 17:17
  mental health.
• 17:18
  And make sure you're spending on evaluate your spend.
• 17:22
  That dropout rate, it's unacceptable.
• 17:27
  And you're paying every person a certain amount of money, and that dropout rate, Do you
• 17:33
  understand the follow through rate?
• 17:35
  What are your outcome measures?
• 17:39
  Have you evaluated your spend on a continuum?
• 17:42
  I just like the well-being continuum.
• 17:45
  So, we could talk a lot about this.
• 17:46
  I love consulting and going through data.
• 17:49
  I like data a lot.
• 17:50
  You'll know that.
• 17:51
  But I think it's a recalibration time.
• 17:55
  It's an opportunity because I think it's been a very dynamic time.
• 17:59
  And we ask, why is mental health growing so exponentially year over year?
• 18:05
  Right?
• 18:06
  There's lots of reasons.
• 18:08
  I mean, every day I read the newspaper and I see what's happening in our society and I go,
• 18:14
  oh my gosh, if it isn't a natural disaster, it's a political disaster, it's a war.
• 18:20
  This is a lot for everybody, every human to absorb every day.
• 18:24
  And some of us are closer to that than others.
• 18:28
  Of course, it affects our well-being, right?
• 18:31
  Absolutely.
• 18:32
  And I think, yeah, if you look at what we came off in a couple years, and then we've kind of
• 18:37
  resettled.
• 18:39
  But the anxiety level and the depression levels were still at a high, and now we were kind of
• 18:44
  the political kind of tensions based on where we are geographically and the wars that are
• 18:50
  kind of going on all over the world.
• 18:52
  The average person is talking about how anxious they are.
• 18:56
  Like we said, that's situational.
• 19:00
  So maybe I don't have the predisposition potentially, but you're still gonna feel a
• 19:04
  little bit anxious if you're thinking like, know where I live, Barb, about ten minutes from
• 19:08
  the bridge.
• 19:08
  Oh my goodness, I didn't even mention the economy and tariffs and all.
• 19:12
  Right, and all of that stuff.
• 19:14
  So guess what?
• 19:14
  Your pulse here in Niagara Falls being ten, fifteen minutes from the bridge, the tensions
• 19:19
  are higher because our local economy is based on tourism, which we know with all the issues
• 19:26
  with the tariffs, that's really decreased.
• 19:28
  So my my little municipality is you can hear people.
• 19:33
  You go to the grocery store.
• 19:34
  You're at the pharmacy.
• 19:35
  You hear people talking about it.
• 19:37
  So just generally that level of anxiety has heightened.
• 19:40
  Right?
• 19:40
  Yeah.
• 19:41
  Yeah.
• 19:41
  And Okay.
• 19:42
  So that's one factor.
• 19:43
  That's only one factor.
• 19:44
  The next thing, and you are the you and I know a lot about this topic.
• 19:49
  I lean on you really on this topic is, you know, workplace culture.
• 19:52
  Mhmm.
• 19:53
  That return on investment.
• 19:55
  A toxic workplace culture costs a lot on people's well-being.
• 20:00
  It impacts your bottom line and it costs you and your sick leave organizations.
• 20:05
  And I'll just tell, I'll say I wrote a blog probably about six weeks ago when movie Wicked
• 20:10
  was released.
• 20:12
  And I wrote a LinkedIn post, and it was called Ding Dong, which is dead.
• 20:18
  And it talked about toxic leaderships and how happy people are when the leadership leaves,
• 20:26
  that problem leader leaves.
• 20:29
  I'm not a professional LinkedIn person.
• 20:32
  I'm not posting tons.
• 20:34
  That post had 14,000 impressions.
• 20:39
  That's big league.
• 20:40
  I popped it.
• 20:42
  I've never seen anything like it.
• 20:44
  And none of them were really the people who liked it and commented were not in the places I
• 20:50
  thought I would get the reactions from.
• 20:53
  It was so well received and identified that it was the most popular post I personally have
• 21:00
  ever experienced for myself.
• 21:02
  Ding dong, which is dead.
• 21:04
  Workplace culture impacts well-being.
• 21:07
  Because I think if you think about it, people want to go to work, and they want that meaning
• 21:13
  and purpose and that belonging.
• 21:15
  And if they go into an environment, if you're spending a lot of people are back to the office
• 21:19
  or even if they're hybrid, they're still having to interact with people and they want to make a
• 21:25
  difference.
• 21:25
  They want to make a difference with what they're doing.
• 21:27
  If they're feeling like they're spending eight hours doing a task and they're not being
• 21:32
  validated, that's core fundamentally kind of revert back onto them.
• 21:36
  And if they now have had some issues in the past around the same anxiety and depression, it
• 21:42
  could be a little bit latent before as you and I know.
• 21:45
  And now they're a little bit heightened.
• 21:47
  Now they have to go do this eight hours a day.
• 21:49
  So their predisposition now becomes active potentially because of the stressors.
• 21:54
  And then hence why we see people having more issues showing up around the workplace because
• 21:59
  people are having to kind of go and deliver and they're not happy.
• 22:03
  They give you the 60%, like they say, and then they go off on the way and people are talking
• 22:08
  about how unhappy they are at work as well.
• 22:11
  And guess what?
• 22:12
  That's not the only reason why mental health is rising.
• 22:14
  Here's the other thing, another one.
• 22:16
  I mean, it's compounding shortage in mental health practitioners.
• 22:23
  One in five Canadians do not have a family doctor.
• 22:27
  If you don't have a family doctor, how do you get a referral to see a psychiatrist?
• 22:36
  There is an incredible shortage of psychiatrists and addiction medicine expertise
• 22:42
  and psychologists and experts in some areas of mental health.
• 22:50
  There are big shortages and there are wait lines.
• 22:53
  So, if you can't get the right help and it's not easy to access it, then that of course
• 23:00
  affects your recovery and your ability to stay well.
• 23:04
  And in the work that we're doing, Michelle and I at Ebola Well-being, we look at holistic
• 23:09
  care.
• 23:10
  We understand and appreciate that many of the people who have moderate to severe issues need
• 23:16
  a care plan that is holistic and involves psychiatric care, ongoing medical management,
• 23:23
  addiction medicine, and we've really incorporated a team of social workers,
• 23:28
  psychologists, and medical professionals, and other practitioners, OT practitioners, so that
• 23:35
  we can create within our own ecosystem fast and responsive care.
• 23:42
  But the wait list and getting into the wrong lane of care delays and increases the depth of
• 23:50
  despair.
• 23:51
  And I say that quite dramatically.
• 23:52
  Well, so you guys wait six to eight months, Barb, and they're already having massive
• 23:56
  anxiety problems, and it progresses.
• 23:59
  They get to the point where it's, you know, people are debilitated.
• 24:02
  They're not leaving their houses.
• 24:04
  And then it becomes exponential, right?
• 24:06
  The mental health just kind of six to eight months.
• 24:08
  Like even to wait a month, if you're already in critical space, that's a lot.
• 24:12
  Most people should be able to to get in relatively quickly.
• 24:16
  Now with your with the spend, let's go back to the spend.
• 24:19
  And they're probably directors or CEOs or or people that can impact the spend.
• 24:26
  What do you think they should be looking at in reference to kind of diagnosing where they're
• 24:32
  spending?
• 24:33
  And like you said, retention, right?
• 24:35
  Or abort rates.
• 24:36
  Like what kind of data should they be looking at so that if they wanted to look at their
• 24:41
  overall kind of mental health spend.
• 24:43
  Well, I would put together the entire bucket and I would map it out according to the
• 24:47
  continuum of care.
• 24:49
  I would dig into the, not who's requesting help, but the back end, who's following through
• 24:57
  that funnel.
• 24:59
  What percentages are hyper users?
• 25:03
  In you and I both know in EAP, there's people who are circling in and out, taking a pause,
• 25:09
  count seeing the same counselors for in some cases, more than was showing up in the report.
• 25:14
  So, they trust that counselor and they're getting long term support within that EAP.
• 25:19
  So, you have some very a small group of people using the service a lot, and is that really the
• 25:25
  best service for them?
• 25:27
  And when you're looking at a spend for every person, what's happening to all other people?
• 25:34
  What's the correlation between your sick leave?
• 25:36
  The people who end up on your sick leave may or may not be the people using that other mental
• 25:40
  health service.
• 25:41
  So I think you have to go in and see the outcomes, then I think you need to really think
• 25:46
  about the return to work.
• 25:48
  And can you coordinate your providers or have a provider that takes you through the journey of
• 25:55
  returning to work and staying at work.
• 25:59
  We call that getting ready for your job to return, that preparation, and then the
• 26:05
  continuation of job study.
• 26:08
  We're wanting to do a study, and I'm happy to talk to anyone who's interested, but we're
• 26:13
  wanting to do a study on the population that we know predictably are likely to return.
• 26:19
  And we see clinical change in our practice.
• 26:21
  We see people who come in with severe depression and drop into that sort of moderate
• 26:26
  or lower level of depression and return to work.
• 26:30
  I want to keep those people feeling well.
• 26:33
  Can we track that group that we believe are at higher risk because we know it in our data for
• 26:38
  two years and see if we can keep them in the job.
• 26:41
  Because it is way less money to have an investment in continual support than having
• 26:50
  people cycle back and forth into sick leave.
• 26:54
  Right, and
• 26:54
  the percentage of people that cycle and cycle and eventually end up in long term anyway, that
• 26:59
  cost of that one case part, right?
• 27:01
  I mean, it's got to be huge, I reference the numbers.
• 27:04
  Yeah.
• 27:04
  So, you could reinvest your spend in continuity of care and maintaining someone's stability, I
• 27:13
  believe there is a strategic benefit, a return on your investment of spending your money for
• 27:20
  the continuity of care.
• 27:22
  And what I know is, and this is interesting, of the folks that we've been seeing in our
• 27:27
  practice, twenty eight percent voluntarily want continue with their counselor once they go
• 27:36
  back.
• 27:37
  They have to do that with their psychological spend or out of pocket.
• 27:42
  Many of them don't have enough money without going in their own pockets to do that.
• 27:50
  I think the organization is very lucky that they want that can continue continuation of
• 27:56
  care because it's going to make sure they stay well.
• 28:01
  So it might be worth looking at it to increase your psychological spend for the duration of
• 28:06
  that person's time.
• 28:06
  So like you said, some companies only have 500, but is it that they should be looking more at
• 28:13
  implementing something further so so that the psychological spend could follow this employee
• 28:18
  all the way through.
• 28:19
  Yeah, and I think that confetti box is the interesting one.
• 28:23
  And everyone, I don't want a whole bunch of people hating me saying, Oh my god, you're
• 28:26
  giving up my freedom.
• 28:27
  I like to choose my therapist.
• 28:29
  But I think some of that is good, but some of it should be targeted towards evidence based
• 28:37
  practice focused on return to work and staying at work.
• 28:41
  Like it's a lot of money in that bucket for many companies.
• 28:47
  Are they getting good value on that or could they repurpose that?
• 28:51
  There's some clever things to be done here and it's hard to go into it in detail, but I think
• 28:56
  examining your benefits spend, making sure your benefit buckets talk to each other.
• 29:02
  They don't just become boxes that are in silos.
• 29:06
  And that I would say is one of the most frustrating things I see.
• 29:09
  I guess, you know, we work with a client, they can return to work, then the workplace says,
• 29:13
  when you run into trouble next, just use that EAP.
• 29:16
  Well, the EAP is not going to be enough for that individual who's just spent six weeks off
• 29:23
  because they've been in the depths of a depression, going to that early intervention,
• 29:29
  lighter styled support solution focus, or, oh, go use an ICBT platform.
• 29:37
  They can't even get out of bed.
• 29:38
  How are they going to log in and follow a structured program?
• 29:42
  Right.
• 29:42
  So you're missing it's almost like the turnstile and you try to put them back way
• 29:47
  back.
• 29:48
  What you need to do is address what they've learned, what they need, and the proper
• 29:53
  interventions to kind of, like you said, keep them steady, support them.
• 29:58
  And sometimes it may be just be a touching base kind of thing.
• 30:01
  But if things come up that they have a clinician that's specific, to what their needs
• 30:06
  are to continue helping them along.
• 30:10
  Yeah, and again, where we started in this conversation, said there's been great
• 30:15
  development, great behavioral health technological developments.
• 30:20
  Some of it looks beautiful.
• 30:22
  It's the follow through and the ability to engage.
• 30:27
  Clients in that yellow and orange and red zone, you got to be real.
• 30:35
  It is an online program that's gently facilitated by I don't even know if they're a
• 30:44
  MA level clinician, often they're a coach.
• 30:48
  They call them coaches.
• 30:49
  Is that going to be enough?
• 30:51
  Is that someone who's going to make sure they comply to their medication and that they've got
• 30:55
  the right medication and that they know how to adjust the strategy?
• 31:00
  I just think re examining and reallocating wouldn't be it's important to do that.
• 31:09
  We do that in all areas of our life.
• 31:11
  It's time to redecorate.
• 31:14
  Maybe it's time to redecorate how we spend our benefits to make sure that
• 31:17
  it's up to date.
• 31:20
  Barb, I know that you have something that you're putting out to the public in the next
• 31:25
  little while.
• 31:25
  Why don't you share with people potentially what you can share about the piece that you
• 31:30
  were talking a bit about?
• 31:32
  And for anybody that's wanting to connect with you, where they can get ahold of you or
• 31:37
  Michelle.
• 31:38
  AvoorWellBeing is on LinkedIn.
• 31:40
  That's probably our most active site.
• 31:42
  We have a website, avoorwellbeing.com.
• 31:46
  I have my own personal LinkedIn.
• 31:48
  I always encourage people to reach out to me.
• 31:50
  Next week will be a busy week for us.
• 31:52
  We are releasing our first white paper.
• 31:54
  We did an evaluation study.
• 31:56
  We are sharing it.
• 31:57
  It's a study that involved 124 employees where we compressed away time.
• 32:03
  We reduced the sick days by over ten days.
• 32:06
  So, in a very small population, we were able to show getting speedy care fast, no one sitting
• 32:13
  in a wait list, a clear pathway, and real quality clinical evidence based care can help
• 32:20
  people return to work in a meaningful way.
• 32:23
  But we're releasing that study, and we'll be doing that through LinkedIn next week.
• 32:30
  We're excited, and it will be our first white paper, we're excited to get the feedback.
• 32:35
  Happy to talk to anyone who's interested.
• 32:38
  Again, I'm very thankful, Roxanne, for the opportunity to have the conversation with you
• 32:43
  today.
• 32:44
  Likewise.
• 32:45
  Thanks so much for discussing some of the elements that may be involved in the white
• 32:49
  paper, just the whole concept.
• 32:51
  And for everyone, mental health is on the rise.
• 32:55
  And to Barb's point, when we go out and invest, we explore and we make sure that our dollar for
• 33:01
  dollar spend is worthwhile.
• 33:03
  And mental health is so important in productivity and innovation and creativity.
• 33:09
  And those subset of people are truly struggling, and they're part of your
• 33:14
  organization.
• 33:15
  To all the things that we've been talking about, with all the stressors that are kinda
• 33:19
  swirling, unfortunately, right now in our world, it's you're gonna you're gonna see more
• 33:24
  of those cases.
• 33:25
  So it's important to Barb's point to look at what is your spend.
• 33:30
  Are you spending?
• 33:31
  You're probably spending a lot.
• 33:32
  But are you spending it on the people that need it so that they're not gonna be costing you the
• 33:38
  monies that they do, or they're not gonna be popping in and out.
• 33:42
  They may be very critical to your company, and you're not getting them at an optimal level of
• 33:48
  functioning.
• 33:49
  So, again, consider reaching out to Barb at Avora and check out the LinkedIn next week.
• 33:55
  I will as well to be able to hear more about the white paper.
• 33:58
  So, everyone, thanks so much for hanging out.
• 34:00
  I'm launching my first course on the RRWR.
• 34:04
  It's going to be mid June.
• 34:05
  So please reach out so I can tell you more of the what's involved in it.
• 34:09
  It's gonna be a six week course with live coaching.
• 34:12
  Again, Barb, thanks so much.
• 34:13
  Thanks for
• 34:14
  everyone.
• 34:14
  Thanks a lot for, hanging out, and we'll talk to you soon.
• 34:17
  Take care, everyone.
• 34:18
  Okay.
• 34:18
  Bye bye.
• 34:22
  Thanks for tuning in to Authentic Living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
• 34:28
  healthy change.
• 34:29
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach.
• 34:33
  To work with Roxanne, visit RoxanneDurhaj.com/blueprint.
• 34:39
  We'll see you next time on Authentic Living with Roxanne.