Farmscape for April 30, 2018

Researchers with the University of Guelph are planning to pilot test a new training program designed help farmers increase their ability to cope with stress and improve their mental well being.
Research conducted in 2015 and 2016 by the University of Guelph showed, compared to other occupations and compared to the general population, Canadian farmers experience higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression and burnout.
In response to those findings researchers, in partnership with farmers and mental health professionals have created and are preparing to pilot test a training program designed to build mental health literacy and create tools specifically for the agricultural community.
Briana Hagen, a PhD Candidate in epidemiology with the University of Guelph, says the training will include things like what is anxiety, what is depression, what does burnout look like, how can we recognize it in one another and how can we have appropriate conversations about mental health to make sure our farmers are feeling supported?

Clip-Briana Hagen-University of Guelph:
We're actually going to be piloting the program over the summer.
The goal of piloting is to make sure that our program is actually improving peoples' knowledge and attitudes toward mental health and wellness so that we're taking a baseline look before we do the training at where people are at in terms of their knowledge and their attitudes toward mental health and then post training doing another evaluation to see if it has improved and then whether or not that information has been retained with a three and six month follow-up evaluation.
So we're looking to make sure there's a significant difference, that our program is actually working.
Given that we find that in our pilot studies, then we will roll out.
If we don't find that then we need to go back to the drawing board and make sure that we have all of the relevant content to make sure that people are actually improving their knowledge and attitudes.

Hagen says people from all across the country and across all sectors have been very motivated and very engaged with mental health and wellness.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork