Protect: Implementing Psychological Health and Safety Programs

Psychological health and safety (PHS) is no longer a workplace luxury – it’s a strategic necessity for organizations striving to foster resilience, productivity, and long-term employee well-being.

The Protect: Micro-training for Implementing Psychological Health and Safety Programs micro-credential is designed for professionals who are ready to champion or support PHS initiatives and programming within their organizations. Whether you’re laying the groundwork or refining existing programs, this course will assist you in expanding your knowledge, skills and core competencies in the rapidly emerging PHS field.

Dr. Bill Howatt and Troy Winters, two internationally recognized experts in the fields of occupational health and safety (OHS) and PHS, will guide you in this four-hour micro-training on foundational considerations for moving towards facilitating evidence-informed, customized PHS programs that align with organizational readiness and maturity.

The end goal of this training is to ensure you have a context for practical actions you can take within the available resources, budget and leadership buy-in to move towards creating a psychologically safer workplace that is committed to protecting and promoting employee mental health – critical for an organization to be high-performing and sustainable.

Who should attend

This course is ideal for HR professionals, occupational health and safety practitioners, safety officers, managers, and organizational leaders who want to begin or strengthen their PHS facilitation skills.

No prior experience is required – just a commitment to improving the mental health climate of your workplace.

Learning objectives

• Explore essential considerations and elements for developing an impactful PHS program and the role of two-way accountability between employees and employers.
• Demystify what PHS is and is not, what a PHS program is and is not, plus the role of the CSA Z1003 Psychological Health and Safety Standard for most organizations new to PHS
• Identify and validate methods for assessing psychosocial factors, hazards and OHS risks within workplace settings
• Introduce current legal, regulatory, and compliance responsibilities of Canadian employers related to PHS
• Frame the considerations required to facilitate a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) PHS program
• Discuss the benefits of leveraging an integrated OHS and PHS hierarchy of control when picking controls
• Explore how to write a PHS control, PHS action plan and PHS scorecard that support PHS program goals
• Discuss how to purchase external programs to mitigate the risk of purchasing programs that lack evidence
• Review consideration for crisis management readiness to support PHS programs
• Introduce PHS program evaluation and PHS auditing

What you’ll get

Upon completion of the course requirements, you’ll receive:

• Protect: Micro-training for Implementing Psychological Health and Safety Programs micro-credential and certificate
• Up to four professional development credit hours
• Access to the course recordings
• Exclusive eBook and course handouts
• A 10 per cent discount to use toward a new online tool to facilitate your organization’s PHS program (launching December 2025)

Please note that to receive your certificate, you’ll need to complete a post-course Psychological Safety Facilitation Competency Quick Screen, receive a score of at least 80 per cent on an online quiz (two attempts allowed per learner), and complete a course evaluation.