Psych Health and Safety Podcast USA

Mary Ann Baynton, Director of Strategy and Collaboration for Canada Life’s Workplace Strategies for Mental Health, discusses the progress of the Canadian Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace. They talk about the importance of psychological health and safety, the development and implementation of the standard, and the impact of our actions on others. They emphasize the need for continuous dialogue and provide resources for creating a psychologically safe workplace.

In this episode, host Dr. I. David Daniels will speak with Lisa Jones-Chandler, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Psychotherapist, and Chief of Corporate Excellence at Vibrant Emotional Health. Vibrant is the administrator of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Ms. Jones will share her perspective as a mental health professional and clinician focusing on operationalizing systems that will create mental and emotional health in the workplace. From the difference and similarities between mental health and mental illness to the purpose and benefit of the 988 system, Ms. Jones-Chandler will share various essential points relative to ensuring that the workplace is psychologically healthy and safe.

In this episode, host Dr. I. David Daniels speaks with Chauncia Willis, the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Diversity in Emergency Management. Ms. Willis is a seasoned emergency management professional with experience in city, county, and state emergency management agencies and private sector consulting. The physical and psychological impact of disasters don’t necessarily end as the physical hazards subside, and in many cases, the effects are more severe in some communities than in others. Research suggests that cultural minority populations, specifically African Americans and Latinos, have a higher risk of disaster exposure and are disproportionally affected by them. The higher risk among communities of color may result from the lack of basic resources, including food, shelter, and income, but also lower levels of disaster education and preparedness, lower risk perception, lower likelihood of evacuation, lower socioeconomic status, and a higher likelihood of residence in poorly constructed homes. I-DIEM leverages diversity, inclusion, and equitable practices to build community resilience and improve disaster outcomes, especially for disadvantaged individuals and communities. Our holistic approach recognizes the value of the diverse attributes of each individual and community while understanding that historical and existing inequity create barriers that limit the ability to prepare for, mitigate against, respond to, and recover from disasters.

One of the core indicators of the level of psychological health and safety in an organization is the degree of freedom that workers have to share their concerns about various topics that affect their safety and their comfort level after doing so. In this episode, Dr. I. David Daniels will speak with Jessica Martinez, the Co-Executive Director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. The mission of NCOSH is to “build the power of workers and their organizations to demand jobs that are safe, healthy, and free from exploitation and abuse.” NCOSH is a federation of 26 grassroots worker groups and the home of the worker’s health and safety movement in the U.S. National COSH is a broad community that includes members of unions and workers’ centers, health and safety professionals, academic specialists, and non-profit advocates. They specialize in peer learning, training, support for worker organizing, and advocacy campaigns. NCOSH’s focus on safety is unique in that it is rooted in activism and the pursuit of justice for workers, especially workers from black, brown, indigenous, poor, and other marginalized communities that are over-represented in workplace injury and fatality statistics. This activism includes an annual effort to identify the worst employers in the country in terms of how they treat workers that they call the “dirty dozen.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that 51.7% of the workforce is female. However, according to Zippia.com, 27.2% of occupational health and safety specialists are women, and 72.8% are men. This suggests that many policies, procedures, and practices relative to safety are created for and by men. This discrepancy can contribute to physical and psychosocial hazards that harm women and may not be the same for men. In this episode, Dr. I. David Daniels speaks with Rose McMurray, who has been focused on safety and the involvement of women in the safety profession for many years. Ms. McMurray was one of the "founding mothers" of the Nation Safety Council's Women's Division, which is focused on the the inclusion and development of women in the safety profession. Ms. McMurray is a transportation safety professional specializing in consulting services for trucking, motor coach, transit, and other transportation sectors. She also provides expert witness services in truck and motor coach legal cases and teaches safety management at the graduate student level. Before she retired from the federal government in January 2011, Ms. McMurray served as the Chief Safety Officer (CSO) and Assistant Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Ms. McMurray’s efforts have earned her several awards, including the National Safety Council’s Marion Martin and Distinguished Service to Safety awards. Other honors awarded to Ms. McMurray include twice receiving the Senior Executive Service Presidential Rank Award, the Secretary of Transportation’s Meritorious Achievement Award, and the Secretary’s Gold Medal. She has served on the Board of Advisors for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Board of Directors of the National Safety Council.

In this episode, we’ll close out our celebration of Black History Month with a conversation involving three 2022 Safety Scholars from the National Association of Black Compliance and Risk Management Professionals Leila Ruggs of North Carolina A&T University, Garrett Washington of American University and Emmanuel Winful of Auburn University. They will delve into their views on a variety of safety-related topics, including the view of these young people of what a psychologically safe and healthy environment looks and feels like from their perspective. We live in a society where most systems that influence our daily lives are heavily influenced by the perspective of those that have been around the longest. Unfortunately, this tendency focuses, for the most part, on the past rather than on the future. The same could be said about conversations regarding psychological health and safety. The vast majority of the research lived experience and expertise that informs our views on safety in general, psychological health and safety, and psychosocial hazard mitigation comes from Baby Boomers and members of Generation X. While these perspectives create an essential foundation for these topics, they are incomplete when they do not include conversations with those Millennials and members of Generation Z.

This podcast focuses on psychological health and safety from the perspective of an occupational health and safety professional. However, there is no question that discussions regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion are certainly more common, as is the focus on psychological safety. While there are many voices in these conversations, they are most commonly DE&I professionals and enthusiasts OR leadership and management experts focused on psychological safety. In this episode of the podcast, we have the honor of having someone with expertise in both DE&I and psychological safety. Our guest for this episode is Sacha Thompson is the founder of The Equity Equation, LLC, a boutique inclusive culture consulting and coaching firm based in the Washington, DC, area. With nearly 20 years of experience within the education, non-profit, and tech industries, Sacha’s work is about removing barriers or providing support to achieve equality. She helps executives and leaders have that important dialogue and coaches them on the necessary, long-term changes that develop institutional cultures of inclusion.

Dr. Yasser Arafat Payne is a full Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. Dr. Payne completed his doctoral work at the Graduate Center-City University of New York where he was trained as a social-personality psychologist. Also, Dr. Payne completed a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIH-NIDA) whereby he worked on a re-entry, and intervention-based research project in New York City’s largest jail, Rikers Island—a project designed to reduce: (1) recidivism, (2) drug use, and (3) other risky behavior leading to HIV/AIDS. Dr. Payne's latest Street Participatory Action Research (Street PAR) project is entitled: The People's Report: The Link between Structural Violence and Crime in Wilmington, Delaware. This community-based study trained fifteen people (20-48) formerly involved with The Streets and/or the criminal justice system as participatory action researchers to empirically document the impact of community violence in the Eastside and Southbridge neighborhoods of Wilmington, Delaware. This research indicated that, particularly in the black community, there are several incorrect assumptions about Dr. Payne and Dr. Daniels will discuss that there is diversity in our perceptions of well-being; thus, assumptions about what “feels safe” need to be challenged. Feelings about safety and well-being can differ based on the person and community they are part of.

Dr. Reginald Freeman, a servant leadership expert and Fire Chief in Oakland, discusses the importance of prioritizing employees' needs. He highlights the significance of psychological health and safety in the workplace and promoting gender inclusivity. Valuing team members and involving them in decision-making, embracing diversity and addressing racism and discrimination are also discussed.

In this week’s episode, Dr. I. David Daniels will speak with Dr. Jerry Carbo, the President of the National Workplace Bullying Coalition. Dr. Carbo is not only an attorney but also a Professor of Management at the Grove College of Business at Shippensburg University. He teaches courses in employment law, Labor Relations, Business and Society, HRM, and organizational behavior. Dr. Carbo’s research includes workplace bullying and harassment, employee rights, socially sustainable business systems, union reform, and revitalization. Dr. Carbo has been a professor at Shippensburg University since 2007. In addition to serving on the EEOC Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, in 2019, Dr. Carbo became President of the National Workplace Bullying Coalition. The mission of NWBC is to eliminate bullying from the American Workplace through education, conversation, and legislation. The coalition is actively advocating the “Dignity at Work Act” as a legislative approach to the belief that dignity is a safety issue.