Table 5 Summary of recommendations in support of correctional and forensic employees, mapped to the SEM

Individual

 Promote healthy living initiatives to deal with stress

1

Interpersonal

 Develop peer support programs for providers working in forensic and correctional mental health care (e.g., nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers)

4

Institutional

 Provide workplace mental health training on topics to support employee psychological health and safety, e.g., stress reduction and management, psychological first aid

5

 Designate a mental health professional to serve employee mental health within psychiatric hospitals and forensic settings

4

 Support staff to prevent and safely respond to workplace critical events (e.g., screen every patient for suicide risk, inpatient violence risk, and risk of seclusion; increase breadth of nonviolent crisis intervention training with an emphasis on de-escalation)

3

 Provide a psychologically healthy workplace with an emphasis on workplace trauma prevention; offer wellness initiatives and increased mental health support

3

 Facilitate strong return-to-work programs following occupational stress injuries

2

 Ensure nurses and allied health professionals receive detailed, onsite professional training regarding mental disorders and their treatment, including relevant psychotherapeutic and behavioral interventions

1

 Designate an occupational health and safety professional to be the lead for workplace trauma within psychiatric hospitals

1

 Destigmatize mental health and help-seeking among health care workers

1

 Provide employees with clinical supervision and/or other opportunities for self-reflective, trauma-informed practice (e.g., drop-in sessions, peer-vision)

1

 Improve employee-to-manager communication

1

 Provide opportunities for employees to engage in areas of work they find rewarding

1

 Offer competitive pay and benefits

1

 Afford employees greater control over their workload

1

 Implement evidence-based critical event operational debriefing following a critical incident in the workplace

1

 Offer evidence-based mental health services and interventions to any employee who witnesses, responds to, or is exposed to the details of a critical incident

1

Policy

 Work with unions and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) to create a user-friendly, transparent, consistent process for WSIB claims following an occupational stress injury

1