Promoting Mental Wellness Among Your Treatment Center Employees

5 Ways to Promote Mental Wellness Among Your Employees

Even though they work in the mental health field, individuals working at drug and alcohol treatment centers are also at risk of developing mental health issues. Therefore, you must promote mental wellness among your treatment center's employees.

Here are five ways to promote mental wellness among your employees.

1) Be a Safe Environment for Mental Health Discussions

As a treatment center, you understand the relationship between mental health disorders and drug abuse. While it's your job to discuss mental health with your patients, your employees may think they cannot discuss their mental health with you.

Create a safe space for your employees. Encourage them to be honest with their supervisors about how they're handling stress or anxiety. When people are open about their symptoms, they're more likely to ask for help and seek treatment themselves.

In addition, you can provide better patient care by reducing the stigma of discussing mental health among your employees. Your employees being compassionate towards each other means they'll be more compassionate towards your patients.

2) Encourage a Healthy Work/Life Balance

During the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home became a popular option for those who had jobs that could be done remotely. Even now, working from home is preferred because it promotes a healthy work/life balance. Finding a balance between working and relaxing is essential to help prevent burnout.

A few ways to encourage your employees to find a balance include:

• Insist they use their vacation days
• Tell them not to check their email when they are not at work
• Give them time to spend with their families, relax, and engage in their hobbies

3) Offer EAP Benefits and Free Screenings

An employee assistant program (EAP) can help your employees with difficulties that affect their work performance, such as stress, insomnia, marital problems, anxiety, depression, or other issues.

As a treatment center, you know the importance of getting a complete look at your patients' medical and mental health history. It's easier to see the symptoms of mental health struggles in other people while we may explain the same symptoms in ourselves as "stress." Therefore, encouraging your employees to take free screening tests regularly is essential.

4) Prioritize Total Wellness

A healthy mind needs a healthy body. Likewise, healthy bodies promote healthy minds. Getting the right amount of exercise, eating healthy, and enjoying fun activities are three ways to improve your physical health.

Your employees' health should also be a priority. One way to help your employees prioritize their total wellness is by assisting them in developing good habits. For example, you can create a rewards program that incentivizes your employees to participate in healthy activities.

5) Practice What You Preach

You are supportive of your patients' journeys to wellness. Therefore, you should also support your employees. The same therapies you provide your patients, you should provide your employees. These therapies may include:

• Self-care tips
• Stress management techniques
• Problem-solving strategies
• Healthy habits building

In addition, encourage your employees to take mental health days if needed. You wouldn't punish your patients for prioritizing themselves. Don't punish your employees.

Benefits of Promoting Mental Wellness

When employees feel better, they work better and are more productive. Encouraging your employees to focus on their mental wellness helps them and helps your treatment center.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that poor mental health can negatively impact your employees' ability to perform their daily job tasks. When their work doesn't get done or isn't done well, your facility's ability to care for your patients also suffers.

Promoting mental wellness among your employees can reduce the number of workers compensation claims, saving you money. While workers compensation doesn't cover mental health issues, it does cover physical injury. Your workers are more likely to injure themselves accidentally at work if they are stressed. In addition, you may also see a decrease in malpractice claims because your employees will communicate better with their coworkers.

Mental wellness is an essential aspect of drug and alcohol treatment. As a treatment center, you look for underlying mental health disorders that may be causing substance abuse in your patients. However, your employees also need to be mentally well. Promoting mental wellness is essential to improve the quality of your facility's patient care, reduce workers compensation and malpractice claims, and save money.

At Leavitt Coastal Valley, we want to help you protect your drug and alcohol treatment center. We can provide you with workers compensation coverage and professional liability insurance to reduce your financial loss if an employee files a claim. However, the process starts with you. The best way to protect your facility is by encouraging your employees to prioritize their mental and physical wellness.