St. Albert has added another tool for city employees to support their health and well-being. The city announced on June 9 it has recently begun collaborating with Telus Health to introduce its Espri app for emergency services personnel.
Espri provides first responders, dispatchers and municipal employees within policing and fire services access to mental health resources.
St. Albert's health, safety and security manager Denise Isbister said the city's fire services department has its own peer support team.
"Peer support is more there to offer that front-line peer support following significant incidents, or if somebody identified that they're needing some peer support help," Isbister said.
Fred Hollands is the peer support team lead, and a fire captain for 21 years. He said the city wanted to formalize a support program dating back to 2017 for psychological wellness. He said the Espri implementation has been in the making for about 2-1/2 years.
"It essentially provides our members with access in the palm of their hands on their smartphones, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's a combination of resources: wellness articles, mental health, resilience building articles, goal setting, and resources to find support," Hollands said.
The main benefit of adding the Espri app as a tool for employees is taking the task of looking for mental health support and giving somebody the resources in a more private way.
"You can always put up your hand in a room and say, 'I need some help.' But this gives another option where if somebody wants to have some privacy and they want to access those resources on their off time, it's always available to them," he said.
Funding for the app was provided through the Government of Alberta's Supporting Psychological Health in First Responders Grant Program. The grant provides $75,000 in funding, which Hollands said will cover the cost to support 500 users on the app for five years.
Isbister said continued investment in mental health support tools is needed these days.
"Nothing in that world is 'one and done.' It is a constant evolution," she said. "Psychological safety work is going to continue to be a focus for all employers everywhere."
"I think we're working hard to try and find what works best. And this was a great opportunity," Hollands said. "What we hope is that it reduces the amount of psychological injury claims, as our goal. But in the meantime, we just hope it supports people's wellness ... we just want to keep trying and working towards finding the best collection of tools that can help everybody be at their best despite a challenging profession."
