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In Case You Haven't Heard…
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
mental health weekly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1556-7583
pISSN - 1058-1103
DOI - 10.1002/mhw.31775
Subject(s) - safe haven , compensation (psychology) , mental health , mental illness , haven , peer support , depression (economics) , psychology , criminology , medicine , nursing , public relations , psychiatry , political science , social psychology , mathematics , combinatorics , international economics , economics , macroeconomics
One of Canada's first peer support groups for funeral workers has been launched in Ottawa to address the overlooked mental health challenges of those in the death business, Ottawa Citizen reported Feb. 3. Michael Dixon and three colleagues founded Ottawa Funeral Peer Support last year after recognizing the suffering that existed within the profession. “Like first responders, we have lost an awful lot of people to depression and mental illness,” said Dixon, a supervisor with Ottawa Mortuary Services. “A lot of other people have simply stepped away from the profession.” Funeral workers experience the same kind of trauma as paramedics and police officers, he said, but they tend to focus on grieving clients and ignore their own well‐being. Ontario now recognizes PTSD as a work‐related illness for police, firefighters and paramedics, which gives them faster access to workers' compensation. The law does not apply to funeral workers. Ottawa Funeral Peer Support now has 80 members on its Facebook page.