The American Psychiatric Association Foundation (APAF) has been awarded a $379,200 grant from the Brave of Heart Fund to help address the well-being and burnout concerns of frontline healthcare workers. Over the next two years, the APAF’s Center on Workplace Mental Health will use the grant to convene experts for roundtables on key topics, leverage the power of storytelling through interviews with hospital leadership, call attention to the issue with the public and with healthcare system leaders, and develop resources on best practices to connect frontline healthcare workers with mental health care.

The Brave of Heart Fund, founded by the Foundations of New York Life and Cigna and administered by E4E Relief, was initially dedicated to providing financial support in the form of charitable relief grants and emotional support services to help families of healthcare workers who lost their lives to COVID-19. Today, the focus of the Brave of Heart Fund supports nonprofits aligned with the spirit and intent of the fund’s core purposes and APAF has been selected for a grant.

“I am so pleased that APAF can bring the expertise of its Center for Workplace Mental Health and our psychiatrist supporters to help our frontline healthcare workers,” said APA CEO and Medical Director and APAF Chair Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A. “Truly the effort is needed as those in our hospitals, urgent care centers, and other medical facilities continue to deal with the ongoing waves of COVID-19.”

“In addition to providing much needed support for frontline healthcare professionals and their families, the APAF and its Center for Workplace Mental Health intend to learn from this grant to design, develop and deliver a cross-cutting, ‘reverse burnout’ campaign,” said APAF Executive Director Rawle Andrews, Esq. “After the damaging effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of our frontline workers, this Brave of Heart Fund support will help us put all that we can into building them back up. We look forward to Darcy Gruttadaro’s and Emma Jellen’s continued leadership on this critical issue.”

In the coming months, APAF will convene a diverse group of leaders from urban, rural, and frontier health systems to address: raising awareness about the growing mental health crisis; creating psychological safety so healthcare workers access mental health care; and highlighting best practices in improving access to care for providers. It will work in concert with strategic national partners, including organizations representing hospitals, physicians, nurses, and other healthcare providers. For more information: please contact Emma Jellen ([email protected]).

American Psychiatric Association

The American Psychiatric Association, founded in 1844, is the oldest medical association in the country. The APA is also the largest psychiatric association in the world with more than 37,400 physician members specializing in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and research of mental illnesses. APA’s vision is to ensure access to quality psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. For more information please visit www.psychiatry.org.

American Psychiatric Association Foundation

The American Psychiatric Association Foundation is the philanthropic and educational arm of APA. The APA Foundation promotes awareness of mental illnesses and the effectiveness of treatment, the importance of early intervention, access to care, and the need for high-quality services and treatment through a combination of public and professional education, research, research training, grants, and awards.