The Mindset Award for Workplace Mental Health Reporting
This award, established in 2016, is sponsored by Workplace Strategies for Mental Health, compliments of Canada Life, which also serves as a source for journalists working in this field. It has a French counterpart: Le prix En-Tête pour le reportage en santé mentale au travail.
The awards celebrate excellent Canadian journalism that makes a difference, in the public interest and in accordance with the principles of the Mindset guide.
The competition rules define "work" and "workplace" broadly, including work for payment and work performed pro bono. That naturally includes work affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the mental health problems associated with it. Studying or taking courses, is excluded from the definition of work for the purposes of this award.
For the 2021 competition, free online applications opened on January 10, 2022 and closed on February 11. A link to the application form is available on the rules page when a competition is open. Applications may be made by media organizations or by journalists responsible for the work.
Winners of the 2020 Mindset awards for workplace mental health reporting were announced during a virtual CAJ awards gala on May 29, 2021. Reporters with The Globe and Mail took two out of three top honours.
Erin Andersson took the top Mindset prize for her feature article published in January 2020, titled: Half of Canadians have too few local psychiatrists, or none at all. How can we mend the mental-health gap? With extensive data and interviews with more than two dozen psychiatrists across Canada, it showed how working conditions and practices contribute to a shortage of mental health services for Canadians who need them most.
Zosia Bielski, also with the Globe, was awarded an Honourable Mention for her piece published in August 2020, titled: In sickness and in health: COVID-19 pandemic stress tests marriages of health care workers on the front lines. Doctors, nurses and personal support workers bring home fear, stress, guilt and helplessness after traumatizing shifts.
A further Honourable Mention was awarded to reporter Samantha Beattie and editor Eva Lam for their data-based investigation published last July by HuffPost Canada, titled: Police crisis teams are in short supply as mental health calls multiply in Canada. The journalists contacted police forces across the country to piece together a national survey that showed most wellness checks are still carried out by officers trained only to respond to crimes, rather than by specialized teams trained to act more appropriately.
The winners discussed their work in this video, presented by Forum president Cliff Lonsdale: