When an Alberta firm was fined for an environmental offence involving mental health issues, the presiding judge invoked a “creative sentencing” approach. Three-quarters of the fine was awarded to the Institute of Health Economics to undertake and evaluate a mental health promotion project relevant to the improvement of conditions in Alberta workplaces.

 
______________________________________________________

As an example, one of the findings is shown in the graph above. This reflects considerable original concern about the problems potentially caused by mental health issues, but with fears considerably allayed at follow-up. There is no obvious explanation for this, but a reasonable hypothesis is that the workshop increased sensitivity and that this dispelled some of the fears that have been shown to be associated with mental illness.

The Canadian Mental Health Association was commissioned to present training comprising two days, one month apart, for senior workplace staff. Sessions dealt with the recognition of mental health problems, connecting with troubled employees, management influences, and suggested worksite policy and procedural changes. Participant views were captured in a questionnaire that was administered three times -  before and after the workshop sessions and again at follow-up (3 – 5 months later). 

    Session I was successfully delivered to 35 persons, while 28 attended day 2. The findings across our three evaluation components showed strong evidence for workshop quality. All attendees agreed (or strongly agreed) that they would recommend the training to others. Notably pre-workshop confidence in the ability to locate help for someone with a mental illness was fairly high and improved significantly after training. However, confidence in the ability to actually talk to a mentally ill employee did not change, nor did confidence in gaining the engagement of senior management (although, initial levels were relatively high). Respondents improved on existing strengths on matching symptoms to diagnoses and understanding the relationship with addictive behaviours. Awareness of the influence of disability was initially low, with significant improvement, and attribution of cause showed no change after training, but levels were initially very high and appropriate. Finally, there were indicators that some positive developments were initiated in the workplaces of the attendees, but these had not been extensive, likely due to our short follow-up period. Five of the respondents had left their employment situation and could not, of course, provide a follow-up report. 
    The project made use of a manualized, and therefore replicable, workshop presentation that dealt with important mental health matters and showed meaningful effectiveness and promise. A more widespread use of these, or similar, workshops is recommended.