It’s almost impossible to look at the news or social media these days without learning of another natural disaster, act of violence, or catastrophic event. From global conflicts to public health emergencies, events like these rattle the everyday foundations of people’s daily lives.The myriad psychological and social implications are devastating. Figuring out how to navigate them—and support others through them—is vital to ensure the health and safety of our communities and workplaces everywhere.
Today, October 10, is World Mental Health Day, a day designated by the World Mental Health Federation in 1992 to raise awareness about mental health on a broad scale. The theme for this year’s World Mental Health Day is access to mental health services, specifically during catastrophes and emergencies. In this article we’ll discuss the ways major events like these affect people’s mental health and highlight how employers can help improve access to support for employees who have experienced a tragedy.
The mental health impacts of major disasters
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly everyone impacted by a major emergency experiences psychological distress. That often looks like high stress, anger, fear, grief, and heightened or unpredictable feelings. We can exhibit changes in our thoughts and behaviors and develop stress-related physical symptoms, like disrupted sleep, appetite change, rapid heartbeat, headaches, and nausea. Events like these can also contribute to increased substance use, strained interpersonal dynamics, and even social and systemic discrimination. Those with preexisting severe mental health disorders are particularly vulnerable in emergencies, as they may experience even more acute symptoms than normal.
For anyone who’s affected, such symptoms can sometimes indicate serious, trauma-induced mental health concerns. Acute impacts and distress resulting from disaster events tend to appear in the first few weeks after a disaster occurs and dissipate over time for most people, but according to the National Center for PTSD, around 10% of people develop chronic, long-term mental health issues. In fact, in situations of war or conflict, WHO reports that as much as 22% of people develop a mental health condition like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or anxiety. However, two people can experience the same traumatic events and have different impacts, with one developing PTSD and one not, for instance.
There is an important distinction here between the “trauma” people refer to colloquially and clinical trauma. Rather than the colloquial use of trauma describing something that’s intense or unpleasant, clinical trauma is, more specifically, a disturbing experience that results in significant and intense disruptive feelings that have long-lasting impacts on someone’s attitude, behavior, and daily functioning. PTSD is the psychiatric disorder caused by such trauma, resulting in a range of symptoms, such as social withdrawal, hypervigilance, difficulty concentrating, irritability, fatigue, sleep disturbances, flashbacks, aggravated responses, and emotional detachment.
5 ways employers can support employees after tragedy
In the aftermath of a major tragedy, everyone needs extra support. Yet, the social support systems and infrastructures people typically turn to are often overextended, operating with fewer resources, or reduced completely. This is a moment employers can step up to the plate and provide employees with more resources, time, freedom, and support to improve their immediate circumstances and reduce the negative long-term impacts on their mental health. Here’s how.
- Offer flexibility in how, when, and where work happens. Employees will benefit from expanded flexibility with location, hours, deadlines, and time away. Allow for immediate time off with a simple approval process. Adjust workloads, allow remote work options, and make it clear that performance expectations will flex accordingly.
- Provide emergency relief funds and essential supplies. Create or activate employer-sponsored disaster relief funds to deliver rapid, needs-based grants for housing, food, transportation, temporary relocation, childcare assistance, and other urgent expenses. If possible, pair financial aid with coordinated distribution of basic supplies for those employees in immediate need.
- Create a clear, centralized resource and information center on local disaster relief and support measures. Update the resource hub daily with links to official assistance channels provided by local organizations and municipal entities in the affected region. Keep the hub easy to scan, multilingual when needed and where possible, and accessible on all devices.
- Train leadership and managers on Psychological First Aid (PFA) and trauma-informed behaviors. This means responding compassionately to mental health disclosures, using trauma-informed language in sensitive conversations, accommodating the needs of teams working under duress or re-entering the workplace, modeling proactive mental health practices, and embedding inclusive wellbeing practices into team operations.
- Amplify mental health communications and access points. Increase the cadence and visibility of mental health messaging to your employees across email, Slack, Teams, and meeting applications. Promote your EAP’s crisis counseling, same-day sessions, and manager consults, and disseminate the contact information for national support lines so employees know where to turn at any hour:
- SAMHSA Disaster Distress Helpline (1-800-985-5990)
- FEMA Disaster Assistance Helpline (1-800-621-3362)
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
How Journey can help employers prepare and respond
Journey can help your organization prepare support measures so you have a plan in place in case a disaster strikes your workforce.
With Journey Proactive EAP, we ensure that your employees have access to mental health support 24/7 with resources that reflect their cultural needs. Our Journey LIVE platform provides on-demand videos with mindfulness exercises and coping strategies specifically for employees going through traumatic events. We can further set up rapid-response communications aligned with CDC crisis-communication guidance, and create an amplified messaging strategy to give employees more frequent mental health tips and reminders in the aftermath. Finally, we can provide leaders and employees with a customized Mental Health Certification training program to train internal staff on how to recognize and talk about mental health issues, approach conversations with care, and guide individuals to the right resources, fostering a safer and more supportive workplace overall.
Supporting mental health in the height of need
World Mental Health Day 2025 is a reminder that access to mental health support is often most tenuous when people are in the greatest need. With the right policies, communications, and care pathways, employers can improve access to care and ensure a supportive environment while employees recover, grieve, and heal.
Book a demo or connect with us to explore how we can help your organization help your employees when it matters most.
