The problem isn’t funding; it’s the failure to treat mental health like any other workplace safety risk, says Canadian HR veteran
With burnout on the rise and budgets under pressure, traditional strategies like EAPs and online modules may be falling short for many employers when it comes to mental health.
At Coast Mental Health, the approach is different: resilience training is built into staff meetings, psychological safety is part of every manager’s toolkit, and community partnerships deliver care without driving up costs.
Driving that shift is CHRO Deborah Maynard. With more than 25 years of HR experience across aerospace, policing, health care, and nonprofit sectors, she’s built a strategy rooted in one principle: if mental health isn’t part of everyday systems, it won’t stick.
“I’ve been doing HR for a long time,” she says. “We won’t talk about how many years but suffice it to say 25-plus years.”
Maynard’s cross-sector experience reinforces a constant: “Engaging people and supporting them is the same across any industry,” she explains. “You might have different policies or processes, but it’s all about getting the most leverage for your dollars.”
Now leading HR, IT, and procurement at Coast, Maynard knows how often HR is asked to fill the gaps.
“Because somebody left and so for the last eight months, they said, ‘Oh, you can do IT, right?’” she says.
Instead of building an expensive internal mental health infrastructure, Coast relies heavily on partnerships.
"We've partnered with universities that have psychologists and psychiatrists to get free therapy and psychoeducational services," Maynard says.
Employees also have access to self-paced cognitive behavioural therapy modules tailored to the challenges of frontline mental health work.
But access doesn’t equal impact: "I can give you all the training and support and services you need," she says, "but if you're not taking responsibility for your own mental health, then the services that we're giving you are probably not going to be effective."
At Coast, manager engagement is central to the strategy. All managers receive mandatory training in psychological health and safety—not just for their clients, but for their teams.
"They've been trained to provide that same support to employees, which is different in approach, because you're an employer," she explains.
That shift—from policy to practice—is embedded in daily operations. "Our managers run 10-minute sessions on burnout and resilience during staff meetings," Maynard says. "We try to embed it in everything that we do."
Flashy one-off events won’t cut it. Culture, she emphasizes, is built through repetition.
"HR can make sure the organization is sustaining that effort, not just doing a flash event... reminding people what's available and reminding people that mental health is a shared responsibility."
It’s not about throwing money at the problem. It's about making accountability part of the job description. "We provide proactive wellness tools, communication campaigns, and training that normalizes setting boundaries," Maynard explains. "That's one of the key things that people sometimes forget."
Still, there’s only so much a single organization can do. Sector-wide momentum remains patchy. "The provincial government created a safety group that is supporting healthcare organizations in developing resources," she says. "But uptake is uneven and often slow."
To close that gap, Coast has leaned on collaboration.
"Our CEO has had a round table of CEOs to advocate for psychological health and safety," Maynard says. She’s also participated in provincial forums and bargaining tables. "One of the things we put in the collective agreement was the start of psychological health and safety."
When asked what HR professionals can do immediately—without waiting for leadership signoff—Maynard doesn’t hesitate.
"Doing trauma-informed investigations so that we're not impacting the mental health of individuals who are under investigation or witnessing something—that actually doesn't require buy-in at the executive level," she says. "HR can do that themselves."
That emphasis on agency—taking meaningful steps regardless of policy or budget—runs through everything she does. For Maynard, HR is not just about compliance. It's about influence.
"You have to look at mental health as a shared, daily responsibility," she says. "If you’re just treating it as a box to tick, you’re going to fail your employees.
Especially in the nonprofit space, smart resourcing matters. "There's so many great free resources," she says. "You don't always have to pay for everything you do."
Strategic sourcing, not budget, is the limiting factor. "Some of the Australian websites have great programs that are free, and the resources are excellent," she adds. "You just have to put the time in to find them."
Resilience training, boundary-setting, micro-learning, external partnerships, union negotiations, trauma-informed processes—none of it is optional. It’s baked into the work.
"Ongoing training and communication around resilience are part of everything we do," Maynard says. "We focus on psychological health and safety not just during crises but as part of our regular health and safety committee work."
Across sectors and systems, her message stays clear: this work isn’t about appearances. It’s about building systems that actually make a difference.
