The Working Mind: Workplace Mental Health and Mental Illness Stigma Reduction Program

Dr. Andrew Szeto is currently the Director of the Campus Mental Health Strategy at the University of Calgary responsible for guiding the implementation of the 28 recommendations within the University of Calgary Mental Health Strategy. He is also a Principal Investigator at the Mental Health Commission of Canada and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary. Over the past eight years, Dr. Szeto has focused on the evaluation of workplace mental illness anti-stigma and mental health promotion programs, such as The Working Mind and the The Working Mind for first responders (both of which have been built on the R2MR program from the Department of National Defence). Over the past several years, he has worked to develop and pilot The Inquiring Mind Post-Secondary, a program tailored for post-secondary students. As well, he has developed a junior high/high school version of the program called The Inquiring Mind Youth. Dr. Szeto also conducts basic research that examines the stigma of mental illness with social psychological methods and theories, including research on labelling, attitudes, and new interventions to reduce stigma. More recently, his research has focused on post-secondary mental health. He has published academic articles on various topics related to mental health and the stigma of mental illness.

Director of the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s international award-winning anti-stigma initiative Opening Minds. In February 2015, Opening Minds received the Innovator Award from the organizers of the 7th Together Against Stigma Conference in San Francisco as the “…program which creates a major impact through new approaches that inspire new possibilities and/or disrupts prevailing views.” He is also the Director of Mental Health First Aid Canada. Under Micheal’s leadership, the Commission launched Opening Minds, its anti-stigma/anti-discrimination initiative in 2009, which is the largest systematic effort to reduce the stigma of mental illness in Canadian history. He was appointed Director of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Canada in July 2015. Micheal and his team have developed a variety of evidence-based anti-stigma programs that have proven to be effective in key areas such as the workplace, healthcare, youth and media. He has presented on his team’s anti-stigma research and programs at conferences in Canada, U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. He is a co-founder of the Global Anti-stigma Alliance, which is composed of more than a dozen international organizations working to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness.