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Mental Health for Remote Workers: Supporting Employees and One Another

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

2:15 pm ET / 11:15 am PT.

The surge in remote work due to COVID-19 has come with new and unique challenges, whether that is being inside all day and balancing work and children or being alone and unable to socialize outside your home or apartment. Employers must now quickly adapt to the emerging and changing needs of their employees in the remote work environment. But, with so much investment in in-person workplace wellbeing, what does a mentally healthy remote workplace look like? How can organizational leaders create a supportive environment and make sure to connect people with needed resources?

Join this free, 60-minute webinar where we will discuss:

  • The impact of COVID-19 and remote work on employees;
  • Signs that your remote employees are struggling; and
  • Practical ways employers can support employee mental health.

For those who are unable to attend, the webinar recording and slides will be available on Mental Health America’s Webinar page.

Presenters:

Dr. Keita Franklin is the Chief Clinical Officer at Psych Hub.  She has focused her expertise in key wellness areas to include suicide prevention, mental health, and substance abuse. Dr. Franklin has spent her 25-year career driving complex organizational and policy change in the federal sector before recently transitioning to the private sector. She has served as a senior executive in both the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), where she served as the principal advisor on all matters related to suicide prevention. As a national leader in the suicide prevention, Dr. Franklin was responsible for leading a multidisciplinary team of experts in the advancement of evidence-based prevention practices for over three million active duty members, 20 million veterans, and their families.  Dr. Franklin has represented DoD and the VA during testimony in front of both chambers of Congress and she has advised the Office of the President, the Domestic Policy Council, and the National Security Council. An innovative leader, she spearheaded a national effort to close the gaps between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran Affairs by authoring a presidential Executive Order addressing critical periods of risk for servicemen, women and veterans.  A recognized expert, Dr. Franklin serves on multiple national-level committees such as the National Academies of Sciences, the Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, the Fort Hood Task Force, and the American Association of Suicidology. Since transitioning to the private sector, Dr. Franklin has been instrumental in the advancement of mental health literacy across the nation and she has championed training on evidence-based practices with the goal of obtaining more efficacious mental health care outcomes for at-risk population groups.  Dr. Franklin has a PhD in social work from Virginia Commonwealth University and an advanced certificate from the Center for Advancement of Research Methods and Analysis (CARMA). Dr. Franklin holds certificates from Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education on “Leading Large Organizational Change”” and Women in Leadership” as well as the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School course on “Executive Leadership.”

Dr. Doreen Marshall has been engaged in local and national suicide prevention work for more than 10 years. Since joining AFSP in 2014, Dr. Marshall has expanded AFSP’s menu of education programs for both clinicians and general audiences, and revamped the infrastructure to improve program delivery through a nationwide network of chapters. She is also leading a new initiative to develop programs for people who have suffered from suicidal thinking or who have survived a suicide attempt. Marshall fosters partnerships with mental health organizations, such as with the National Council for Behavioral Health to train people across the country in Mental Health First Aid, and oversees the development of new programming, including clinician trainings in Attachment-Based Family Therapy and K-12 educator trainings such as the Signs Matter program.

Prior to joining AFSP, Marshall served as Associate Dean of Counseling at Argosy University, where she contributed to the CACREP-accreditation process for the university’s counseling programs. She chaired the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Georgia, and served as Associate Director of The Link Counseling Center’s suicide prevention and aftercare program in Atlanta. She was a consultant for both national and state suicide prevention and postvention initiatives, which included providing suicide prevention training for the Division of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and serving on a task force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention.

Marshall holds a doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Georgia State University, a master’s degree in Professional Counseling, and a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and English from The College of New Jersey.