For employers, unions, and member-assistance programs
Workplace Mental Health Support
Workplace mental health programs, self-guided tools, and counselling for the organizations of Vancouver Island; co-developed with you, and already delivered across healthcare, education, and local government.
What does poor mental health cost an organization?
Worldwide, depression and anxiety are estimated to cost 12 billion working days a year in lost productivity (WHO, 2022). In one workplace that looks like sick days, turnover, and people who have quietly stopped putting their hand up. It is one of the largest costs an organization carries, and it never appears as a line on the budget.
The other side is just as real. When people feel genuinely supported, they stay longer and do better work; research links workplace mental health support to lower turnover and stronger productivity.
Sources: World Health Organization (2022); Harter, Schmidt & Hayes (2002), Journal of Applied Psychology; Bellet, De Neve & Ward (2024), Management Science.
The 2-minute overview
Where does this usually start?
You have probably watched it happen. Someone steady, someone who always showed up, quietly starts to slip. The sick days that cluster together. The shorter answers in meetings. The person who used to volunteer for everything and now keeps their door closed. By the time it reaches a formal conversation, it is often already a crisis.
Keep reading
You want your people to have somewhere to set it down long before that. You likely have supports in place, an assistance line, maybe a wellness email or a lunch session someone ran once. But you have a nagging sense that it is not landing. The material sounds generic. The counsellor on the other end of the line has never stood in your workplace or met the people in it.
That gap is the whole reason this page exists.
I build these programs with you, not just for you. We start by looking at what your people are actually carrying, then shape the options below around what we find. Some organizations begin with a single talk. Others build a full schedule across the year. You set the depth.
What can I bring to your organization?
Where most organizations start
Psychoeducation sessions for your people
Short, plain-language sessions for your staff or members, in person or online. Pick a subject; we build one session or a series around it.
Building resilience
Recognizing stress load before it piles up, and the practical skills that build the capacity to carry it: pacing, recovery, and what actually refills the tank. The most common place a team starts.
Burnout prevention
The early signs, the workload and always-on patterns that drive it, and what a team can change before people hit the wall.
Anxiety and low mood
Plain-language education on the most common conditions and how they show up at work, so they are met earlier and with less fear.
Working through change and uncertainty
Steadying skills for restructures, new systems, and the low hum of economic worry.
Healthy boundaries and recovery
Protecting the time to switch off and rest, which is one of the supports employees rate most highly.
Addiction and substance use
How substance use starts to take hold, the patterns that tend to show up at work first, and what actually helps. Plain language, and no assumption that anyone in the room is the person being talked about.
Sleep and shift work
Why shift work and being on call take sleep apart, what helps rather than what is usually suggested, and how to protect rest when the schedule will not cooperate.
Built with you
This is not a canned deck. We pick the subjects together and shape the examples, the language, and the timing to fit your industry and your schedules. You know your people; I bring the clinical grounding, and we build the session where those two meet.
And alongside that:
Self-guided digital tools
People leave with something to practise with. Each subject pairs with a matching tool on my site, so the skill gets used in the week that follows instead of fading once the room empties.
- A tool matched to the class, so the skill gets practised
- Short, self-guided exercises for a break or 2 a.m.
- There for the people who will never sit in a session
- Private by design; nothing typed leaves the device
- Included with the partnership, not sold separately
Assessments and check-ins
Private self-checks built on recognized screening questionnaires. About three quiet minutes on their own device, and a plain-language read of what the score means.
- A private way for someone to check whether what they are carrying needs help
- A 30-minute consultation to go over the results and whether counselling is the right route
- Answers never leave the device; a low-pressure front door for your people
- For reflection, not diagnosis; anything formal is referred out
Custom multi-unit courses
For organizations wanting more than a one-off session, we can build a course in units.
- Each unit: a short lesson, a practical exercise, a check-in
- Units that stack into a program over weeks
- Roll out to new staff and members as they arrive
- Onboarding content built with your HR team: your language, my clinical structure
Group work on site
I run structured group work and on-site programs where your people already are, rather than somewhere they have to get to.
- Support that is not one more thing to drive across town for
- Run at your site, on your schedule
- Speaking slots for training days, all-staff meetings, and wellness events
Backup for your peer supporters
Many organizations already have peer supporters or a wellness committee. They carry real weight, usually without anyone behind them. I can be that.
- Consultation to back up your peer supporters or wellness team
- A place to refer when something sits beyond a peer's role
- Support for the people who support everyone else
A referral pathway for your people
When someone on your team, or their spouse or child, needs more than a session in a room can give, you have a real answer rather than a shrug. They book with me directly.
- Somewhere specific to point people, instead of hoping they find their way
- Fully separate from you, which is exactly why people will use it
- It draws on the extended health benefits you already pay for
Supporting your leaders
Canada's voluntary National Standard for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace names leaders in two of its thirteen psychosocial factors. They carry it twice: asked to hold everyone else, and usually the last person anyone asks about.
- Helping people leaders notice early signs and respond well
- Manager support is the strongest lever on employee mental health, yet only two thirds of managers feel equipped for it (Mental Health Research Canada, 2025)
- Counselling for the leaders themselves, who are usually last to ask
- Training for your leaders, not an inspection of your organization
Help finding funding
Cost should not be the reason your people go without support.
- For some organizations, part of this can be grant-funded
- I help find a program that fits and write the mental health part
- Included, and not billed, whether or not it succeeds
- Your organization applies; I come on as your named delivery partner
What does it cost?
This is easier to picture with the numbers in front of you, so here they are. We still shape the exact package together, but you should not have to ask what it costs.
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$500
A talk
Up to an hour, in person or online.
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$1,200
A half day
A morning or an afternoon with your people.
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$1,800
A full day
A full day on site, shaped around your schedule.
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$3,000
A semester
Starting price, built across a full semester with the digital tools included.
And for ongoing work
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$250
Group therapy
a session
-
$175
Leadership coaching
an hour
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from $1,100
Consulting
a day
-
$150
Individual counselling
a session, covered by many extended health plans; coverage varies, so check yours
- The digital toolkit
- Confidential check-ins
- A referral pathway for families
- Counselling and mental health services are exempt from GST and PST, so these are the whole numbers.
- If budget is the barrier, part of this can sometimes be grant-funded. Helping you find a program and write the application is included, not billed.
Why bring me in?
This is not a new experiment. The work already travels across very different workplaces, and across the people in them.
Already delivered, in real workplaces
- Healthcare
- Public education
- Municipal staff
And years of one-to-one work with
- Trades and physical workers
- First responders and nurses
- Veterans
- Leaders and business owners
- Faith communities
- Everyday staff
More about Sean's background and credentials
I also did not come to this work from behind a desk.
- Ran my own business and worked in the trades, so I know the weight of making payroll and the culture of pushing through.
- Served in the Canadian Armed Forces infantry.
- Spent years in frontline ministry, including leading a street church and running a recovery home, next to addiction and crisis every day.
- Over 500 hours of public speaking.
That range is context for how I meet whoever is in the room; it is not the point. The point is what it lets us build for your people.
The clinical side is real too. I am a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) with the CCPA, holding a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology (MACP), a Master of Divinity (MDiv), and a Diploma in Professional Counselling (DPC). I work primarily through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): learning to feel something hard and still choose how you respond. It is practical and direct, which tends to land with people who think in outcomes.
Ready to start a conversation?
The first step is a short conversation, no cost and no pressure. Tell me who your people are and what you are seeing, and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right fit.
From there, you get a clear plan: what it covers, what it costs, and when it can start.
Start a conversation
What do organizations ask?
We already have an assistance program and benefits coverage. Why add this?
Both do real good, and this replaces neither. A phone-based assistance line is generic by design: session caps, a different counsellor each time, and material that was not written for your workplace. Coverage has a quieter problem. People carry counselling benefits for years without ever using them, and the reasons I hear are usually the same ones: they are not sure what counselling actually is, whether what they are carrying counts as serious enough, or how to take the first step. A plain-language session answers exactly that, and it points people back toward the coverage you are already paying for. The rest is built with you, in your people's language, by someone who has already delivered it in workplaces like yours, so it sits alongside what you have rather than competing with it.
Is anything my people tell you reported back to us?
No. This is a private practice, separate from your organization. Individual counselling is confidential under CCPA standards and BC law; nothing is shared without the person's written consent. Group sessions and courses are education, so there is no individual clinical record to report in the first place.
Can you diagnose our people, or do WorkSafeBC assessments?
No. As a Canadian Certified Counsellor I provide counselling, education, and screening; I do not diagnose, and I do not perform psychological, WorkSafeBC, or disability assessments. Anyone who needs a formal diagnosis or assessment is referred to a psychologist or physician. I am careful about that line on purpose.
What does it cost?
The full list is on this page, under "What does it cost?". A talk is $500, a half day $1,200, a full day $1,800, and a semester-long program starts at $3,000. Ongoing work is priced separately: group therapy $250 a session, leadership coaching $175 an hour, consulting from $1,100 a day. The exact package depends on the pieces you choose and the size of your group. We settle that in the first conversation. Individual counselling for your people and their families is $150 a session and covered by many extended health plans; coverage varies, so check yours.
Does this only fit certain industries?
No. The topics and examples are co-developed with you, so the program fits a hospital, a school district, a trades local, a municipal office, or a small business equally well. What stays constant is the clinical grounding and the plain language.
Where do you deliver?
In person across the West Shore and Greater Victoria, on-site at your location, and online anywhere in British Columbia when getting everyone in one room is not realistic.
How do we start?
Book a conversation or email sean@introspectuscounselling.ca. We will talk about your people and what a first piece could look like.
Extended Health Insurance
Canada Life
Co-operators
Coughlin & Associates
CVAP
Dialogue
Empire Life
Equitable Life
UV Insurance
GMS
Green Shield Canada
iA Financial Group
ICBC
Johnston Group
Manulife
Pacific Blue Cross
Sun Life
TELUS Health
Medavie Blue Cross
People Corporation
ProviderConnect
RWAM
Simply Benefits