Your Impact on Mental

Health
How Your Career Development Practice Promotes Client Mental Health
CERIC Webinar, April 3, 2020
Dave Redekopp & Michael Huston

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Canadian and Australian Perspectives

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Webinar Registrants Outside North America

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Poll Question 1
• Over the last few years, how often have you been aware of the
mental health implications of your work?
• Not at all
• Not very often
• Often
• All the time

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Overview

Career Development & Mental Health Framework

Career Development Intervention & Stress

Career Development Practice: Ethics & Skills

Evaluating & Communicating Mental Health Outcomes

Q&A

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Career Development & Mental
Health Framework

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Mental Illness & Mental Health Together
• Corey Keyes – 2 continua
model
• Mental health co-exists
with mental illness
• Mental health mitigates
frequency/severity of
mental illness symptoms

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Career
Development &
Mental Health
Framework

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 Lives Change…
Life
Effects
• Work
• Income
• Social identity
• Routine / pattern

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 Competencies are
Acquired…

Ability • Career management skills

Effects • Self management / life skills
• Employability / workability skills
• Transferable skills

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 Perceptions of Self
Change…

• Self-efficacy
• Identity (internal)
• Hope (perceptions of coping)
• Meaning / purpose
Self-
• Agency / locus of control
Perception
Effects

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Poll Question #2
• On which of the self-perception • Self-efficacy
changes does your work have • Identity (internal)
the greatest impact?
• Hope (perceptions of coping)
• Meaning / purpose
• Agency / locus of control

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 Perception of
Opportunities Shift…

• Uncertainty tolerance
• Cognitive bandwidth
• Optimism
• Attention aligns with intention
Opportunity-
Perception
Effects

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 Opportunities Shift…

• Work / employment roles

Opportunity • Work projects / activities
Effects • Access to influencers
• Exposure to networks
• Learning events

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Career Development Intervention
& Stress

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Stress
• A reaction to perceptions about coping
• Behavioural
• Cognitive
• Physiological

• Stress is a reaction to the perception that we might not be able to

cope with the demands we are facing.

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 Am I Experiencing
Career-Related
Stress?

Yes No

Stressor Management Stress Management

Reduce Increase
Manage Stress
Demands Coping Skills

Adapted from Hiebert, 1987

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 Reduce Increase Coping
Manage Stress
Demands Skills

Reducing
Build Career
demands Stress
Development
- Management
Skills and
Normalizing Activities/Skills
Knowledge
and Validating
Indecision

Stress Reduction
Skill Development Stress
Stress
Reduction Long-term Coping Reduction
Retention
Engagement
Academic
Achievement
Self-Esteem

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 Reduce Increase Coping
Manage Stress
Demands Skills

CD Interventions

Career Decision-Making Skills

Organizing Information
Self-Understanding
Identity Development
Career Research
Experiential Learning
Developmental Perspective
Career Planning = Life-Planning

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Huston & Dobbs (2014). Career development intervention as mental health intervention.

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Figure 6.3. Combined career development effects and transactional stress and coping model

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Stress and Coping: Key Ideas
• Concern about coping with demands
• Amplified if
• Demand is considered important (e.g., future is contingent on coping)
• Coping is overly challenging (e.g., competitive market)
• Coping (how to) is ambiguous
• Demands are additive
• Stress is reduced or eliminated when there is a perception about
being able to cope

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Interpersonal Skills
Mental Health Awareness
Wellness Informed Practice

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Interpersonal Skills
• Questioning-Soliciting (Function: engagement, practice)
• Open Questions
• Closed Questions
• Probes
• Reacting-Reflecting (Function: feedback)
• Attending
• Paraphrases
• Reflecting Feeling
• Structuring (Function: meaningful context)
• Summarizing
• Overviews
• Giving Information

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Interpersonal Skills & Mental Health Awareness
• Structuring function: meaningful context for client learning
• Orientation to process
• Focus on career concerns
• Messaging – Career concerns are related to mental health

• Structuring
• Overviews
• Transitions
• Summarizing
• Information Giving

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Information Giving
• Statement during the meeting/session
• Provision of information relevant to the discussion: explanations, background,
resources, theories, or evidence.
• Can be used to help our clients connect career development and mental
health.

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Information Giving Example
• At the start of a session:

• Practitioner (IG): “We’ve discussed confidentiality and I’ll just mention that
I’m a career development practitioner and my main focus will be on the career
development concerns you want support with. We know, however, that other
parts of our lives are strongly impacted by our career-related decisions and
activities and vice versa. It’s difficult to make effective career decisions
without considering our whole life.”

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Information Giving Example
• During a session, sharing evidence about the relationship of career
development and mental health, normalizing.

• Practitioner (IG): “One of the things we know for certain about job loss is that
it is stressful for most people, that over time it can take its toll on our mental
health.”

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Information Giving Example
• During a session – reinforcing boundaries, linking to resources, normalizing.

• Practitioner (IG): “John, just to be clear and so I’m not working outside my area of
expertise, I want us to remember that, of course, I’m a career development
practitioner and in my role I’m going to focus primarily on career concerns, on doing
what I usually do with the clieyounts I have that have been through similar job loss
experiences. This is to help learn and build the skills that will equip you to manage
your career demands. Another thing we know for certain is that taking this approach,
even though we’re not focusing on mental health concerns directly, leads to less
stress, more hope for the future, and other positive mental health outcomes.
However, if you want or need additional support with mental health concerns, I have
a list of referral resources I can connect you to.”

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Career Development Intervention & Mental Health
• Role
• Focus as always on our client’s career-related concerns.
• Educational: help our clients to learn about the relationship between career
concerns and mental health.
• Responsibility
• Work within our boundaries of competence, time, and role.
• Learn about mental health.
• Learn about the relationship between career development and mental health.
• Build opportunities for referral to mental health resources and practitioners.

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Evaluation and Communication

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Poll Question #3
• What is the main way you / your
organization assess the mental
health outcomes of your career
development work?
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• We have no measures
• We use anecdotal/qualitative
information clients provide
• We ask about mental health
indicators before and after
Tracking Mental Health Outcomes
Verbal
• How has your (thinking or feelings or behaviour) related to the
demands you’re facing changed since you started?

• Follow-up:
• What specifically caused this change?
• What have you been doing that brought about this change?

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Tracking Mental Health Outcomes
Written (for your surveys)
(Likert Scale Questions: 0 = not at all, 10 = completely)
• How hopeful are you about finding work?
• How hopeful are you about your ability to manage your future career path?
• How competent do you feel regarding [add a skill set of interest here, such as résumé-
writing, interviewing, cold-calling?
• How competent do you feel regarding your ability to manage your future career path?
• How positive is your thinking about your ability to handle the demands coming up in
your life?
• How calm are you about the demands coming up in your life?
• How well do your actions directly address the demands that you face in life?

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Tracking Mental Health Outcomes
Post-Pre Surveys

• Measures perceptions about change before/after.

• Works for individuals and groups.
• May be more accurate because clients understand what you are
asking.

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Sample Post-Pre Questions

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Sample
“Post-Pre”
Survey
Averages
from a
Career
Exploration
Workshop

Second highest
difference score
is on a mental
health outcome
not addressed in
the workshop!

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Communicating to Stakeholders
• Who needs to know about the
impact of your work on mental
All social change starts health?
with a conversation. • How can you engage them in a
Margaret Wheatley conversation?
• What evidence do you have?
• What stories can you tell?

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Questions?

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Thank You!
For more information: To order Strengthening Mental Health
Through Effective Career Development: A
Dave Redekopp Practitioner’s Guide:
+1 780 451 1954
liferole@telusplanet.net
www.life-role.com/CDMH.htm https://ceric.ca/publications/strengthening-
@liferole mental-health-through-effective-career-
development-a-practitioners-guide/
Michael Huston
mwhuston@gmail.com https://www.amazon.ca/Strengthening-
Mental-Through-Effective-
Development/dp/1988066433
To join the CDMH Community of Practice,
email liferole@telusplanet.net

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