What are the most common misconceptions about engaging stakeholders with mental health conditions?

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is not an easy thing to implement. However it is immportant for redcuing stigma and adding more (potentially all) voices to the conversation. I have worked with people with mental illness and the only additional accomodation needed was sensitivity. Which is somthing that we all need, don't you think?

Who is "They"? If "They" is people with mental health conditions, which mental health conditions are we talking to? WHO identifies at least 8 categories of mental health conditions. Stakeholders need to be defined and specific, the premise of this exercise is grounded in the stigma mental health conditions are amorphous in their effect and impact. And this is invalidating. Moreover, there are many They's already actively participating in social impact projects without claiming their MHC because it doesn't impact on their capabilities. I'd encourage better definitions - someone with ADHD may respond very differently than someone with Schizophrenia or Anxiety or PTSD.

If you’ve met one person with a mental health condition, you’ve met just one person. Everyone, even with the same condition, has different needs and preferences. If you’re working with someone with a mental health condition, try to understand what their personal preferences are.

People with mental health conditions (MHC) are capable of great things. There’s a phrase in the disability community, “nothing about us without us.” This rings true for those with mental health conditions. The workforce is a place for teamwork and collaboration where your best employees align their passions with the mission. Excluding persons with MHC from projects places artificial barriers that limit the development of one population of individuals. Alternatively, engagement of these same employees leads to increased morale and loyalty with proven increases to profit.

In my experience, anyone, including people with mental health issues gets passive if things are handed down to them. This is seen more often because management has a lack of trust in peoples' capabilities. This is a good inidcator od a tick-in-the-box DEI recruit, rather than someone that is actually a good fit. On the other hand, I have seen the passion with which all people can after their goals if just goven the trust and the opportunity.

I think, at least for the neurodevelopmental disorders, there is a shift happening here. The Neurodiversity Movement is an active advocate for change - and yes it is in its infancy, and it is not without its faultlines, but it is about empowering people to take up their own advocacy. I'd argue that it is not being passive recipients, but rather that fear of asking for support because of the stigma attached. The most common question an ADHD coach gets asked is "Do I declare my ADHD at work" and, for a while, the answer was no, because there was the risk that you would be viewed as using it as an excuse. My own personal experience as a late diagnosed was that there was no interest in my declaring my status as it would "complicate" things.

In fact the opposite is true for many of us who choose to take actions that can minimize (though not eliminate) Major Depressive Disorder. Staying active, sleeping enough, eating well, spending time with quality people, a spiritual or meditative practice, and medical treatment are the six pillars of action that keep me as well as I can be. There is nothing passive about it. Furthermore, this practice is scalable. You don't have to have a mental health condition to take these steps and become more resilient mentally and emotionally. This does not prevent depressive episodes, but it decreases their frequency and intensity in my experience.

Not really. As a university professor, I regularly have opportunities to engage with several students with mental health conditions. I would say, they are not difficult or risky to engage. Instead, they need a more thoughtful and tailored approach to get engaged. For example, some of them may be very shy to ask questions in the classroom, while others may want to ask similar questions multiple times. Just like other people, each of them has a different personality. Understanding their personality type is key to having a successful engagement with them.

In my experience, I had no idea about my colleagues' condition till they chose to share it. It had no effect on our interaction in work.

No! The workplace needs to change. So many people have some sort of handicap, physical or mental that needs to be accounted for, mental health is one of those things. It's about giving mental health a little more attention. The value this can bring to the group as a whole is creating a workplace that is attentive to mental health. Thus, saving the cost of burnout, which has become too prevalent.

This is an area that fundamentally needs to change. In my early coaching days I referenced the way physical and "invisible" disabilities are seen and treated. For example, regulations are enacted to ensure wheelchair ramps make workplaces accessible. But, let's say, you have ADHD, a neurodevelopmental mental health condition. Your company goes open plan "to improve collaboration" (and not to micro-surveil your movements) and you request a distraction-free space for focus work. Guess what the response usually is. This is why the neurodiversity movement is pushing for active change. However, this is why recently I've argued the same as this sections premise, that we have to define our differences before we can advocate real change.

While 1 in 5 individuals suffer from a mental disorder at some point in their lives, mental health disorders are the major overlooked challenge to population health both in the United States and elsewhere. It's crucial to focus on understanding and preventing root causes from occurring in the first place.

This may not be a myth, at least in terms of identifying - and this talks to the difference one can make by including people with MHC in social impact projects. Lack of general awareness, access to information and timely diagnosis, and societal stigma is pervasive. Not only do we need to raise awareness within the workplace, but by incorporating this awareness into the social impact projects you're raising awareness in communities that may have even less access to information. The risk of no diagnosis in any of the MHC increases the risk to unfulfilled lives exponentially in those who have MHC.

There is some excellent research by Accenture called "It's not one in four" describing how more than 90% of us are materially impacted by a major mental health event at some point in our lives, either directly or indirectly. And that analysis was completed before COVID. In other words, we are talking about everybody here.

Mental Health is like physical health. We all have it, and it exists on a spectrum for each of us. Some of us have significant challenges, and others have few. But if you experience grief at the loss of a loved one, you are experiencing a setback to your mental health, and the same tools that serve a chronic Major Depressive Disorder sufferer may be just as useful to you in that moment. Mental health is not about who is and who is not in scope. We are ALL in scope, just like we are ALL in scope for physical health.

Conversations are dialogues. Companies need to engage in conversations with their "They's" and listen to their challenges of working in a neurotypical space. Parking assumptions at the door about what they think a MHC is would go a long way to hearing how their They's experience their environment. WHO suggests 1 in 8 people are defined under the MHC category, while the bell curve suggests that up to 20% of the workforce is non-neurotypical. That's a sizeable number of people that would be excluded from solutions to better productivity, and by incorporating this group the spill over effects via social impact would be far more effective.