According to Mind Share Partners’ 2023 Mental Health at Work Report, 31% of respondents indicated that their work or workplace environment negatively impacted their mental health, while 38% felt it positively impacted their mental health. Less than half feel that their company supports their mental health or employees with mental health conditions. Their 2021 report found that 76% of US workers reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition.
An American Psychological Association survey found that 81% of respondents said that employers’ support for mental health will be an important consideration when they look for work in the future—including 30% of workers who strongly agreed that employer support for mental health will factor into their future job decisions.
On Saturday, June 8, 2024 we explored the definition of work and workplace, work cultures, challenges, and the importance of valuing mental health. We engaged with leading experts, exchanged ideas and perspectives, and explored innovative approaches to fostering and engaging in a supportive and inclusive work environment.
Read more here.
Panelist Information
Our panel presented solutions to create a workplace culture of psychological safety, discuss the impact of pandemic trauma on the ways and wheres of how we work and the effectiveness of Brainspotting, as well as explored the role that language plays in our ability to acknowledge and address mental health challenges in our personal and professional environments.
Our program featured three local presenters sharing their expertise and perspectives, followed by a moderated interactive Q&A.
Jennifer Arrington
Co-Founder of Rebel Human, Jennifer Arrington trained under Harvard neuroscientist, Dr. Srini Pillay, is certified under both the Kundalini Research Institute and the Yoga Alliance (E-RYT®, YACEP®), and previously served as Wellness Advisor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Jennifer has taught internationally and has worked with companies like Warner Bros., Microsoft, Dell, Pepsi, and Cedars-Sinai. She has been featured in several local and national publications is a published author.
Jennifer develops and teaches the protocols and systems, informed by positive psychology and neuroscience, to help individuals, teams, and companies pierce the veneer of performative wellness. Her goal is to get you to a place where decisions and difficult conversations are easier, you’re better able to to maximize your creativity and energy, and train your brain to be laser focused while protecting your mental health. Jennifer shared her insights on what’s not working in the workplace and the solutions necessary to create a culture of psychological safety.
Billy Kaplan, LCSW
Billy Kaplan’s work is being his daughters’ father and his wife’s husband. To support that work he is the President and Clinical Director of TreeHouse Health, a human services company that provides mental health and emotional wellness services to individuals, couples, and families. Billy earned a Master of Social Work from Yeshiva University, the Wurzweiler School of Social Work. He is a Certified Brainspotting Consultant and Practitioner. Billy is the creator of Parenting in SPACE™, a therapeutic parenting model. He has presented extensively locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally on topics including attachment, trauma, and therapeutic parenting.
Billy addressed how the pandemic has affected the “ways” and the “wheres” of how we work, the Trauma experience(s) of the Pandemic, and how healing from that Trauma and improving work performance can be facilitated by the use of Brainspotting.
Heather Bodie
Heather Bodie is a public speaker, mental health advocate, and corporate trainer focused on how we talk about mental health in the workplace. She also serves as the Executive Director of Erasing the Distance, a non-profit arts organization based in Chicago whose mission is aimed at disarming the deadly stigma that surrounds mental health through storytelling and facilitated conversation. Heather holds a BA in Theatre Arts from the University of Iowa. She served as Adjunct Professor at Dominican University and is certified in Mental Health First Aid.
Since 2013, Heather has been in utilizing documentary theatre and the power of radical curiosity to explore the role that language plays in our ability to acknowledge and address personal and professional mental health challenges. Over the past decade, she has traveled across the country working closely with leadership teams spanning multiple sectors to examine work styles and ideate mental health focused approaches to team management.
Our Moderator:
Dana Laughlin, EdD, MA, NCC, LCPC
Dr. Dana Laughlin is Department Chair of The Chicago School’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program and a professional counselor who has worked in the mental health field for over 19 years. Her career started in community mental health working with a variety of populations including, but not limited to, addictions, dual-diagnosis, severely mentally ill, and co-occurring disorders. She worked in the Cook County Department of Corrections serving clientele who were incarcerated leading to her dissertation “Correctional Officers Bias and Perceptions towards Inmates who are Mentally Ill.”
Dr. Laughlin started her teaching career in 2016 at Argosy University, moving to The Chicago School in the Fall of 2021. Her teaching philosophy centers around the students with whom she has the pleasure to interact and educate. Her goal is to create and maintain an active learning environment that encourages exploration, evaluation, understanding, application, and synthesis of the material presented. Further, she expects and demonstrates ethical behavior, authenticity, and accountability in all professional and personal interactions.
