Life Balance –Making Space for Mental Health

Hosted by the Human Resources Committee, this interactive event will cover mental health issues in the workplace.

Panelists:
Sarah Hilton, Stressed Out Solutions

It took Sarah Hilton a moment to recognize her passion and her goal for the future; to stop silence, stigma and suicide by speaking out and training workplaces on Mental Health and how to understand and support mental illness in the workplace.

It took Sarah Hilton a lifetime of living with her father, diagnosed with Depression, to realize that unless families paid more attention to their children, parents and friends, people will suffer from silence and stigma.

It took Sarah Hilton 20 years of working in the Mental Health field to come to the conclusion that unless society takes a look at preventing mental illness and promoting mental health she would still be working with the most severe of mental illnesses, chronic and critical.

Rebecca Kwiatkowski, ArcelorMittal Dofasco

Rebecca Kwiatkowski, Reg.N., BScN., OHN., MSc, is Manager of Integrated Health at ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Canada’s largest flat rolled steel producer with 5,400 employees in Hamilton, Ontario.

At ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Rebecca leads the development, ongoing management, auditing and reporting of key wellness performance indicators for the company. She leads a cross functional team that ensures the organization has the capability to respond to occupational health and emergency care situations, manages disability and claims administration processes for occupational and non-occupational injuries and illness, manages the Employee and Family Assistance Program and develops the individual and collective capability of ArcelorMittal Dofasco leaders as they relate to wellness. Under her leadership, the company was named an Canada Awards for Excellence Gold Level winner in Healthy Workplace Category as well as the Foundation Level Award for for the Mental Healthy Workplace category.
Prior to joining ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Rebecca held the positions of Occupational Health Nurse (J.M. Schnieder’s), Nurse Case Manager and Critical Incident Stress Manager (Medcan Health Management),  and Consultant (Aon Consulting). A long-time OOHNA member, Rebecca has had articles published in the OOHNA Journal and has presented OOHNA webinars and conference sessions.

Laura Pratt, Great-West Assurance Company

Laura Pratt, B.A., C.I.M., H.I.A.A., I.C.A.  National Practice Leader, Organizational Health
Laura has worked with Great-West Life in the disability and wellness field for 29 years. Her role involves working with Great-West Life’s largest customers, ensuring the optimization of the wellness and disability services provided by GWL. In addition to various industry designations, she holds a degree in English from Dalhousie University, a Certificate in Human Resources from Fanshawe College, and completed the Canadian Institute of Management (CIM) designation through studies at the University of Western Ontario (Western University).

Alex Thomson, Executive Director, Lynwood Charlton Centre

Alex Thomson is the current Executive Director of Lynwood Charlton Centre, a Hamilton based children’s mental health center, and holds both a Bachelor’s and a Masters degree.

Alex has worked in the children’s mental health field for nearly 40 years, and he has been the Executive Director of the Centre for the past 32 years, contributing greatly to a forward thinking visionary organization. He is the past chair of both the Board of Children’s Mental Health Ontario and the Hamilton Children’s Service Sector committee. He continues to be actively engaged in Hamilton based planning committees focusing on children’s mental health services.

Lynwood Charlton Centre has been recently designated as the Lead Agency for the Ministry for Children & Youth Services’ provincial transformation process, Moving on Mental Health.