“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe people are FINALLY talking about this!!” my mom, kept saying over and over again the other day while I let her sit in on our latest webinar!  The webinar was presented by Lori Snider who is a mental health advocate.  She talked about the importance of recognizing mental concerns in your peers (and residents), how you can support them and how reduce stigma.  What does that have to do with my mom?

My mom retired in 2017 after spending 49 years as a Clinical Social Worker.  Her specialty was brain trauma.  She is used to mental health conversations in a clinical setting and especially at the hospital.  You see, often when a patient was brought to the hospital for a brain injury, a mental health diagnosis followed (and that person likely had a history of a mental health concern that had either been minimized or misdiagnosed.  Often this was the first time they were getting the support and education they finally needed).  My dad, on the other hand, was a Property Manager for commercial buildings and fully emersed in the corporate world until he retired.  As my dad worked his way up the corporate ladder and became a manager, he would often consult my mom on his worker’s struggles.  It almost always came back to mental health.  My dad often said that he was a better leader as my mom was giving him insight into mental health awareness and how he could best support his employees.  My dad had staff that were loyal to him and switched companies many times over the years with him.  He had employees that disclosed to him their mental health concerns (everything from ADHD to intellectual disabilities, depression, bipolar, etc).  My dad found his staffing team to be incredibly effective and bonded as he led with the knowledge that mental health concerns are just like physical concerns: they should be shared without shame and judgement and then respected and checked on. As you can imagine this was not common.  Often, I would hear my dad saying to my mom “Carol, you should do corporate training for everyone on mental health and brain trauma and how to be a better boss and co-worker!”.

When my mom saw Lori speak on Wednesday she kept saying “I can’t believe people are FINALLY talking about this!!” Or “OMG imagine how much healthier corporate America would be if every company had access to this webinar!!”  As you can imagine, she was elated to see that someone had “listened” to my dad and was finally creating awareness, reducing stigma and talking about mental health in the workplace.  Lori gave us such great tips about how to create space for these kinds of conversations, why they’re so necessary and so much more!  Thank you Multifamily Insiders for making my mom’s day and thank you to Lori for educating us all  ❤️