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Expanding Affordable Housing and Jobs Programs as Strategies for Addressing the Mental Health and Overdose Crises
Our society is grappling with mental health and overdose crises. In the United States in 2021, 22.8% of adults experienced mental illness,1 and more than 106,000 Americans died from drug-involved overdose.2 As the leader of a New York City nonprofit provider of shelter, housing, health, and...
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Supportive Housing Workers are Burnt-Out, Overworked, and in Dire Need of Support
Essential to the health and recovery of our formerly unhoused neighbors with the most complex needs are critical workforce investments for those who serve and support them. The future of supportive housing, the most effective tool available to combat chronic homelessness, is threatened by a severe...
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Organizational Strategies for Anti-Stigma Work Within Our Four Walls
Mental health stigma affects all of us. It is so ingrained in our society, that we have to consciously choose to share or not to share our experiences or connections to mental health challenges. This conscious level decision-making brings a processing we engage in asking ourselves either, “Am I...
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Addressing Clinician Burnout in a Community Mental Health Setting During the COVID Pandemic
More than two years into the COVID pandemic, we are probably all familiar with the term “burnout.” According to the literature, burnout is defined as a syndrome resulting from one’s profession that is comprised of three dimensions of symptoms: fatigue and emotional exhaustion, a low sense of...
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From the Desk of Dr. Max: The Impact of Employee Depression in the Workplace
Although the impact of emotional health challenges is well documented in the literature, its impact and consequences for the workforce and the work environment is ever increasing and prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four out of ten adults reported symptoms of anxiety and depression during...
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Employee Mental Health Benefits in the Private Sector: Workplace Programs and Hiring Policies
According to a recent study by Mental Health America, about fifty million Americans are experiencing some kind of mental illness. Each year, major depression affects more than 8% of about twenty-one million American adults. No matter a person's origin, age, status, line of work, or other personal...
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The Detrimental Health Impact of Unemployment
Employment has the potential to contribute to positive health outcomes for people with serious mental illnesses; however, its analog, long-term unemployment, is a social determinant that has not been consistently recognized for its extremely negative effects on the individual’s recovery and other...
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Peers in the Workforce: Reversing Misconceptions and Succeeding
This article is part of a quarterly series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The authors of this column facilitated a focus group of their peers to inform this writing. The authors are served by Services for...
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Employee Wellness: Meeting the Challenge of the Workplace
Today’s behavioral health agencies are under more pressure than ever to measure and improve outcomes, reduce costs, adapt to changing market and regulatory conditions. As a result of these sometimes competing pressures, burnout and compassion fatigue are ever present concerns in today’s...
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Improving the American Mental Health System: The Importance of the Workplace
Bill lived in an almost constant sense of dread. At work he was distracted by his worries about his children, who were having problems in school and about his deteriorating relationship with his wife. He worried about having enough money to pay the bills. At night he lay awake ruminating about...
