Mental Well-Being for Community Leaders (MW)
Mental Well-Being for Community Leaders (MW)
Supporting Individual, Team, and Community Well-Being in High-Pressure Leadership Roles
Community leaders, economic developers, elected officials, volunteers, and organizational leaders often operate in environments characterized by high expectations, limited resources, public scrutiny, and complex community challenges. While these roles are rewarding, they can also create significant stress, fatigue, and burnout that affect individuals, teams, and organizations.
Mental Well-Being for Community Leaders (MW) is designed to help participants recognize, understand, and respond to the unique pressures associated with community leadership. The course provides practical tools and strategies to support personal resilience, foster healthy workplace cultures, strengthen team well-being, and navigate the emotional challenges that can arise during periods of change, disruption, crisis, or recovery.
Participants will explore the relationship between well-being and effective leadership, learn to recognize signs of stress and burnout, and gain practical approaches for maintaining their own mental well-being while supporting others. The course also examines the role leaders play in creating psychologically safe workplaces, supporting teams through adversity, and helping communities recover from disasters, crises, and prolonged periods of uncertainty.
Rather than serving as a clinical mental health program, MW focuses on equipping leaders with practical, evidence-informed tools that can be applied in everyday situations. It emphasizes recognizing when support is needed, fostering resilience, having supportive conversations, and connecting people with appropriate resources while remaining within the boundaries of a leadership role.
This is an optional course within the Community Economic Development Certificate Program.
COURSE OUTCOMES
- Explain how individual and team well-being contribute to community resilience and organizational effectiveness.
- Recognize common signs of stress, distress, cumulative stress, and burnout in themselves and others.
- Apply practical self-assessment tools to better understand personal stress levels and coping capacity.
- Use strategies to strengthen personal resilience, including self-care, boundary setting, reflection, and stress management techniques.
- Describe the Wellness Continuum and Mental Health Continuum and use them to recognize changes in well-being over time.
- Understand how stress affects leadership effectiveness, communication, collaboration, and decision-making.
- Identify common workplace stressors and implement strategies to support healthier team environments.
- Apply the OSCAR communication technique to support team members experiencing stress or challenges.
- Recognize the impact of public scrutiny, crisis situations, and prolonged disruptions on leaders and teams.
- Apply Psychological First Aid principles, including Look, Listen, and Link, within an appropriate leadership role.
- Understand the emotional arc of disaster recovery and the effects of collective trauma on individuals and communities.
- Identify when and how to connect individuals, teams, or community members with appropriate support resources.
- Foster psychologically safe workplaces that encourage open communication, peer support, and resilience.
- Strengthen leadership capacity to support teams and communities through adversity, disruption, recovery, and change.
- Develop practical approaches for integrating mental well-being into organizational culture, leadership practice, and community resilience planning.
Delivery Option & Cost
Individual
Online, self-directed learning. Available 24-7.
$195 Members $295 Non-Members
Group
Hybrid- Online:
Self-directed, augmented with live instructor sessions
$325 Members $435 Non-Members
In person:
Group session in your community. One day instructor-led online workshop.
$2950 Members $3450 Non-Members