Earlier this month we were pleased to present our 2020 Summer Institute in Occupational Health Psychology. This Institute was first held during the summer of 2012, and has alternated each year between being presented by our Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, here in Portland, and St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. As our view of Total Worker Health^® (TWH) has evolved over these last 8 years, bringing together researchers from academia with occupational health, safety, wellness and human resource professionals continues to be a key goal.

This Summer, we met the COVID-19 challenge of changing course, after securing speakers, to provide a fully virtual 3-day event. It’s fair to say we were a bit apprehensive about such an endeavor! We again thank all of our speakers who continued on for the “long haul” in not only agreeing to present virtually, but providing a stellar program. Secondly, we are so grateful for the engagement and flexibility of all of you who attended as participants.

Although each annual Summer Institute has focused on both occupational health psychology and the concept of Total Worker Health, the program objectives change from year to year. Without a doubt, our 2020 Summer Institute, Building a Culture of Health, Safety and Well-Being, shared more details and practical examples than we have in the past.

Over the three days we provided 17 unique sessions, including a three-hour workshop on Day 3. No wonder we were all so exhausted afterward! Yet we were simultaneously encouraged and stimulated by the high caliber of shared content, which fell into one of two buckets:

• Think Culture of Health, Safety and Well-Being to highlight evidence behind creating positive workplaces.
• Do Culture of Health, Safety, and Well-Being which focused on best practices for building a culture of well-being.

Because the three-day event contained such extensive content, rather than attempt to recap it all within this blog, we invite you to peruse the agenda, speaker slides, handouts and recordings. We’re pleased to share recordings from our event at no cost, although some presentations may be unavailable as a few presenters requested their slides not be shared.

No doubt, we did miss the opportunity to connect with you – our speakers, attendees and partners – in person, but we are pleased to have had such a large and participatory virtual audience.

If you are not already on our mailing list to receive our monthly newsletter, we encourage you to join so you can stay in touch with what we’re up to, and upcoming events. To get on our mailing list just go to our Institute home page and sign up at the bottom.

In the meantime, if you have questions or want to follow-up on anything related to Total Worker Health or the Summer Institute, please do contact us. We look forward to seeing you in the future, be it in person or virtual!