Work affects psychological health and safety. These resources provide information on workplace justice and making work healthy and safe. They include tools to bargain concrete psychological health and safety measures, reduce stigma and create work and union spaces that promote psychological health and safety. This section also offers guidance for union leaders to address work factors that contribute to poor mental health, such as stress and discrimination.
If you are in crisis:
- Canada Suicide Prevention Service (CSPS) 988 (FR/EN)
- Kids Help Phone (Ages 20 years and under) 1‐800‐668‐6868 (FR/EN)
- First Nations and Inuit Hope for Wellness 24/7 Help Line 1‐855‐242‐3310 (FR/EN)
- Canadian Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line 1‐866‐925‐4419 (FR/EN)
- Trans Lifeline – All Ages 1‐877‐330‐6366 (EN/SP)
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Fact sheet
Conducting psychosocial hazard surveys in your workplace
Workplace surveys are powerful tools that help to gather evidence about the psychological health and safety conditions that our members face daily. When done properly, these assessments reveal both risk factors and organizational strengths we can build upon. These assessments are frequently performed using psychosocial hazard assessment survey tools.
Resources
Creating healthier work, not tougher workers
This fact sheet will help you identify psychosocially toxic work and develop effective mitigation strategies. Seeing the symptoms and using the right language to address psychosocial hazards helps to make a healthier work for everyone.
Guide
Guidelines: Psychological health and safety
This guideline provides the foundations to connect the ways that work creates stress, the ways that stress-related injuries affect mental wellness and strategies to restore safe and healthy work for psychological well-being. In its pages, you will find a detailed overview of psychosocial hazards and effective mitigation strategies designed to ensure your work is safe and healthy for all.
Fact sheet
Critical incidents and stress
A critical incident is an event, or a series of events, that causes enough stress to overwhelm a person’s ability to cope and return to their normal state of well-being. This fact sheet provides a brief overview of critical incidents, and their potential effects on individuals. It also provides clear instructions for the prevention of, and effective response to critical incidents at work.
Resources
How to have difficult conversations at work
Fact sheet
Overwork
Overwork is a health and safety hazard affecting more and more CUPE members. It occurs when workers have too many tasks, too little time to complete them and not enough rest. This factsheet provides an overview of overwork and its impacts on psychosocial health and safety at work. It then provides tips to mitigate and reduce the risks of overwork.
Fact sheet
Resilience and mental well-being
Resilience is the ability to effectively manage situations, even the unexpected, as we go about our daily lives. This factsheet provides an overview of stress and stress-related illness in the workplace, as well as discussing proactive steps to develop and implement effective solutions at work.
Fact sheet
Talking to members about mental health
Mental health can be a difficult topic to engage with. This fact sheet provides a guide to engaging in a healthy dialogue with members about their mental health in a respectful and proactive way. It provides the groundwork for establishing a safe space to foster conversations about mental health at work.
Mental health and well-being at work
Fact sheet
Work-related stress
Workplace stress is a serious health and safety hazard that can have devastating effects. Stress occurs when there is a poor match between workplace demands and a worker’s degree of control.
Resources
Peer support programs
Peer support programs are a way for individuals with shared experiences to help each other. They are based on the idea that people who have faced similar traumatic events can understand and support each other without too much effort or explanation. Peer support programs are used in many settings, including workplaces.
Health and Safety
No worker should be put at risk on the job. At CUPE, we fight for robust workplace protections and practices that ensure the safety, well-being, and health of all workers.