Understanding and Addressing the Psychological Health and Safety of Black Professionals

Black professionals in human service organizations carry a distinct and compounded burden, navigating high-demand work environments while simultaneously contending with racial microaggressions, emotional labour, cultural isolation, and organizational systems that were not designed with their psychological wellbeing in mind. The mental health implications of these racialized workplace experiences are significant, yet existing psychological health and safety (PHS) frameworks and organizational tools have failed to adequately capture or address the unique realities of Black or racialized employees. In social work, a field explicitly committed to social justice and equity, this gap demands urgent practice attention.

This workshop centres the mental health and workplace experiences of Black professionals as the primary focus of inquiry and action. Drawing on findings from a multi-phase mixed-methods study, including the development and validation of the Racialized Workplace Experiences Scale (RWES) and qualitative interviews with Black professionals in human service organizations, participants will examine how racialized workplace conditions shape mental health outcomes and PHS across eight empirically derived domains: Leadership Behaviour, Equal Treatment, Human Resource Practices, Workload and Job Demands, Stigma of Blackness, Accountability, Supportiveness, and Safety.

Qualitative findings from Black professionals will anchor the workshop in lived experience, illuminating how the weight and burden of Blackness at work, the emotional labour of navigating racialized dynamics, the angry Black woman stereotype, cultures of organizational avoidance, and absent HR accountability mechanisms collectively erode the psychological health and safety of Black employees in ways that existing frameworks do not measure or address.

The workshop combines a brief presentation of research findings with reflective dialogue and participatory engagement throughout each of these four structured activities: 1) participants will share their own workplace experiences organized around the RWES domains, creating space for collective recognition of how racialized conditions manifest across organizational contexts. In Activity 2, a facilitated conversation circle will explore guiding questions including: What does psychological health and safety mean for Black professionals in predominantly white organizational spaces? How does racism shape workplace mental health, burnout, and professional sustainability? What responsibilities do organizations and social work leaders hold in fostering psychologically safe environments for Black staff? In Activity 3, participants will engage in a collective harvesting of strategies, co-constructing evidence-informed approaches for building workplaces where Black professionals experience genuine safety, recognition, and belonging. In Activity 4, participants will receive a brief introduction the ongoing development of two emerging practice frameworks, the SEATI™ Leadership Framework and the ELEVATES™ Framework, designed to translate PHS research into organizational leadership and assessment tools. Participants will be invited to contribute scholarly, critical feedback to this developmental process, the impacts of which could extend beyond human services to workplaces across sectors.

Participants will leave with a deepened understanding of Black workplace mental health, familiarity with the RWES as a validated measurement instrument, and evidence-informed strategies applicable across research, practice, supervision, policy, and organizational consulting contexts.