Grande Prairie’s Resource Centre for Suicide Prevention has partnered with Northwestern Polytechnic to hold the 2024 Mental Health Summit to promote mental wellness in trades, industry, and agriculture.
Tracy Golnick, Director of Men’s Mental Health at the RCSP says the two-day conference will feature breakout sessions and training opportunities for employers to address mental health in the workplace. She says the “unfortunate truth” is mental health is rarely spoken about in the trades and agricultural industry.
“I think it’s really important in any workplace,” she says. “When we look at trades and industry and agriculture, they’re traditionally workplaces that don’t have a lot of conversations around mental health, yet they experience some pretty significant stressors when it comes to their mental wellbeing.”
According to Golnick, the goal of the summit is to create conversations in spaces that need them the most and address key issues surrounding the stigma of mental health in those industries.
“It’s kind of a first of its kind in Canada, there’s a lot of mental health conferences in workplaces but not specific to the trades industry and ag,” she says. “How do we go into some tough workspaces, talk about mental health, how do we support companies in their mental health strategies, how do we beef it up, how do we build more skills.”
Golnick says the RCSP is hoping to see around 200 attendees at the event and interested individuals can register online on the RCSP’s website.