Addressing Mental Wellness & Economic Development
Addressing mental wellness is often overlooked by individuals, businesses, organizations, and communities, but it is a crucial issue that needs attention. Community leaders are particularly vulnerable to mental health challenges, as we’ve seen through our work in business and economic recovery following natural disasters and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In our experience, economic developers frequently encounter business owners struggling with financial difficulties and also dealing with a variety of personal stressors such as addiction, divorce, health issues, grief, depression, and anxiety. It’s a reality—many of us know someone who is personally facing mental health challenges.
Negative news stories and social media can also contribute to increased anxiety for those supporting business owners and coworkers.
To build long-term capacity, it is essential to focus on increasing personal resilience, which in turn fosters business and community resilience.
Economic Developers Alberta (EDA) is currently collaborating with the Canadian Red Cross and Hummingly to develop a course aimed at equipping and supporting community economic development leaders in managing the stresses of daily life at home, work, and in the community.
This panel will highlight the work currently underway in this area, and explore how fostering mental wellness can help lead to more resilient, prosperous communities.
About the Speaker
Leann Hackman-Carty
Leann Hackman-Carty
Leann has been the CEO of Economic Developers Alberta (EDA) since 2009. She specializes in community economic recovery and resiliency.
Leann’s personal and professional experience has fostered a growing interest in supporting the mental wellness of community leaders in challenging times. This includes completing a recovery project with 11 Alberta flood-impacted communities (2014), setting up and operating the Fort McMurray and region business hotline, validating businesses for Red Cross emergency relief, and leading a 10-member technical assistance team to the region (2016-17). Her Master Your Disaster series of readiness, response and recovery guides for families, businesses and communities was launched on Amazon shortly after her work in Fort McMurray.
Leann has also updated the Canadian version of IEDC’s Leadership in Times of Crisis toolkit several times to help communities prepare for and recover from economic disruptions and brought IEDC’s community economic resiliency training to Canada. EDA’s most current version of this course continues to be offered online and in-person, and its Mental Wellness for Community Leaders Course is scheduled to launch early in 2025.
Leann is a Certified Economic Developer through EDAC and has a BA (Political Science/Sociology), BSW (Community Development), Professional Management Certificate (Marketing) and a Certificate in Economic Development.
She is currently coordinating a multistakeholder group focused on building regional economic capacity in response to the 2024 Alberta wildfires.
