Partnership for Workplace Mental Health
E-Update, May 2006
SAVE THE DATE
- The 2nd Annual World Congress Leadership Summit on Cost Appropriateness of Behavioral Health and Wellness,
co-sponsored by the Wall Street Journal in association with the American Psychiatric Association will take
place May 15-16, 2006 in Baltimore, MD. Visit
www.worldcongress.com/events/nw624/index.cfm for more details.
- Plan to attend the 2006 International Absence and Disability Management Conference, "Cents and Sensibility:
Achieving a Profitable and Healthy Workplace" at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina, July 16th - 19th, 2006.
For more information, please visit www.dmec.org.
- Disability and Return to Work Survey Online. The Partnership continues to collaborate with business to
help employees with mental disabilities successfully return to work. Currently the project taskforce is conducting a
survey to better understand how employers approach disability management. The information from this survey will be
used to help us identify best practices. The survey can be found at
http://www.workplacementalhealth.org/DisabSurvey.cfm.
We look forward to your responses!
- Latest Issue of Mental HealthWorks Now Available! Through your affiliation with the Partnership, we
are pleased to offer you the opportunity to share our free quarterly newsletter with your colleagues. Visit
www.workplacementalhealth.org to download a PDF of the newsletter,
or email mhw@psych.org to be placed on the email or print subscription list.
Our latest issue includes stories on:
- New Employer's Guide to Behavioral Health Services Calls for Integration
- Iowa Hospital Finds A Better Way to Boost Employee Wellness
- Behavioral Health Benefits Have a Positive Impact on Productivity, Absenteeism
- Balancing Life and Work: A Psychiatrist's View
Mental HealthWorks is a free quarterly publication of the Partnership and the APA.
WORKPLACE MENTAL HEALTH NEWS - MIND Your Health: May Is Mental Health Month 2006. This year marks more than five decades of
celebrating Mental Health Month. The National Mental Health Association has released a series of tip sheets to help
people of all ages in their everyday activities. Topics include:
- Mind Your Stress: Tips for Managing Stress on the Job Workplace Activity Ideas Finding Your Balance: At Work and Home
- 10 Tips to Improve Mental Health in Older Adults
- 10 Tips for Improving Family Mental Health Childhood Depression: Tips for Parents
- Helping Children Grow Up Healthy: Tips for Working Parents
Visit www.nmha.org/may/ for a full listing of Mental Health Month 2006 materials and activities.
- Collaborative Launches Online Search for Workplace Alcohol Screening. Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems and
the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety have joined together to find promising workplace alcohol screening and intervention
techniques that can be used to develop new approaches that employers can use to address problem drinking. The Partnership
for Workplace Mental Health supports this effort to identify best practices and innovations in behavioral/mental health and invites
employers and vendors of employer products and services to participate in this important study by answering just a few brief
questions about the type of approaches used by and offered to workplaces. Visit the Partnership homepage
www.workplacementalhealth.org/ for more information and
for a link to the survey.
- Mental Health Parity Would Not Raise Treatment Costs, NEJM Study Says. The elimination of special caps on
mental health coverage might not lead to increased spending, according to a study published in the New England Journal of
Medicine, "lending new ammunition to a longstanding push" for mental heath parity legislation, the Wall Street Journal
reports. The study, found in the March 30, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine is available online for subscribers.
Check out the WebMD article on the study at www.webmd.com/content/article/120/113805.htm.
For those who subscribe to the Wall Street Journal online, the study was also featured in the March 30 issue in the article "Findings
Support Coverage Of Costs for Mental Health."