Supporting a Mentally Healthy Kelowna
The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), Kelowna has recognized three Okanagan businesses for their commitment to workplace mental health. The 5th Annual Mentally Healthy Workplace Awards took place this week, celebrating employers that make employee’s mental health a priority.
Rising temperatures. Melting ice caps. Drowning polar bears. We don’t need to be told that there’s a climate emergency, and that it’s taking its toll on the planet. But the climate emergency is also a mental health emergency. The stats are powerful: psychological trauma from a natural disaster is forty times greater than trauma from physical injury. The human stories are troubling: in the Canadian North, Inuit hunters are reporting increased mental health problems, as ice conditions change and threaten the hunt for food. Climate scientists themselves are suffering from ecological grief and depression. And there are children who can’t sleep because they’re worried about the future.
The Canadian Mental Health Association, BC Division (CMHA BC) has published a new report on the social determinants of mental health and examines the ways that crucial BC services like social housing, social assistance and employment supports, can support or undermine the human rights and wellness of those living with mental health or substance use-related health issues.