Dr. Marie Helene Pelletier

Dr. Marie -Helene Pelletier, PhD, MBA

International Bilingual Leadership Resilience and Burnout Prevention Expert, Work Psychologist
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Dr. Marie -Helene Pelletier, PhD, MBA

Throughout her career in Business Management and Psychology, Dr. Marie Helene Pelletier has spearheaded a national and international dialogue on the crucial issues of Leadership Resilience and Workplace Mental Health including burnout prevention.

Drawing on her extensive experience including head of workplace mental health strategy at Sun Life Financial and her teaching at the University of British Columbia Business School, she brings workplace expertise on mental health and on resilience as a key pillar of overall health and sustainable innovation.

A bilingual practising psychologist with experience in clinical, counselling, and advisory workplace psychology, Marie-Helene holds a Ph.D. in counselling psychology from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from the UBC Sauder School of Business.

She is a Member of the Global Clinical Practice Network of the World Health Organization, and past Director on the boards of the Canadian Psychological Association and the International Association of Applied Psychology.

She has presented, authored and co-authored a number of industry and academic publications and was won numerous academic and industry awards, including the Industry Leadership Award from Benefits Canada.

Please contact us to learn more about Dr. Marie-Helen Pelletier!

    Topics 
  1. RESILIENT MENTAL HEALTH: How mentally resilient are you?

    Our ability to be psychologically resilient significantly influences our mental health.

    So how mentally resilient are you and how do you know when your resilience is low? In this keynote Dr. Marie- Helene provides research-based tips to help you strengthen your mental health resilience by applying the basic principles of cognitive behavioural research.

    • Identify warning signs that your resilience is low and the potential implications for you, your team and the organization
    • Understand links between physical, financial and mental health
    • Learn practical, research-based tools to both build and retain your resilience and mental health.
  2. MENTAL HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE: Best practices for your own, your team’s and your organization’s mental health

    Mental health is everyone’s business. When Leaders and team members  activated and utilize resources, great benefits can be achieved.  In this keynote, Dr. Marie-Helene shares how to balance the day-to-day management and operational responsibilities while establishing a system of best practices that supports better resilience and mental health in the workplace

    • Identify key protective factors in workplace mental health
    • Understand the multi-faceted, dynamic processes of resilience and workplace mental health
    • Learn best practices to implement proactively, during adversity and after
    • Learn how to increase awareness of how cognitive biases influence behaviours and what we can do to avoid, mitigate, or change their impact.

     

  3. FRONT LINE RESILIENCE: Preventing Compassion Fatigue and Burn out

    All front line workers including those in Healthcare and Education face daily challenges to their  personal and professional resilience.  Given their high pressure roles in a culture of always putting others first, it is not surprising that burnout and compassion fatigue represent prevalent mental health challenges in these industries.  In this keynote Dr. Marie-Helene shares how to implement what she calls “the resilience workout” in order to keep resilience levels high and prevent compassion fatigue and burn out.

    • Understand how your professional beliefs are impacting your resilience
    • Learn the Resilience work out to build the Resilience muscle
    • Discover how to be a self-managed leader
  4. THE LEADERSHIP RESILIENCE CONTINUUM: Best Practices for Employee Mental Health and Organizational Resilience

    Organizational leaders are challenged to meet performance goals and support employees struggling with mental health. On average, about 30% of long-term disability claims are mental health related and this number continues to increase.  In this keynote Dr. Marie-Helene shares how to balance the day-to-day management and operational responsibilities while establishing a system of best practices that supports better employee mental health and organizational resilience.

    • The issue – understand the mental health continuum, including mental illness and disability
    • The system – identify types of resources available to you and your team
    • The actions – learn best practices to take preventative action and action when a situation occurs.

     

Testimonials: 
Virtual Keynote 2020 I had the chance to be at that conference and learn about Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier perspective on mental health in the workplace during and after the pandemic. She provided numerous advices. They were clear and applicable, but most importantly they help us to better understand the context and have a glimpse of what we can expect in the near future.
Medavie Blue Cross
Virtual Keynote Feedback Nov 2020 Marie-Helene – your presentation was timely, informative, engaging, and stirred up plenty of conversation for us at FW – thank you for this much needed presentation on resilience! I will personally bringing back to my team the prompts to have a discussion about our ongoing team resilience needs and status – to help normalize the conversation.
First West Credit Union
I had the distinct pleasure of working with Marie-Hélène to – very quickly – convert her face-to-face program to a fully online one as we pivoted in response to changes caused by COVID-19. We essentially were asking MH to do something in a matter of days that would normally be done over a number of months. Not only did she agree, she enabled us to complete the project ahead of time. Perhaps the best part for me was that, because MH is such an accomplished presenter, having her record the foundational pieces ahead of time, so that she can focus on interactive group work and discussions during the live sessions, was a complete breeze, and all done in one take. And although all I really had to do during this time was to make sure the wifi didn’t cut out, I actually found myself taking notes as MH talked about leadership resilience. Her style is engaging, her energy exhilarating, and her content relevant and research-based. I can see why MH is in high demand as a speaker, an advisor and an educator.
Executive Education | UBC Sauder School of Business
The feedback from our physicians for Dr. Pelletier’s Resilience workshop was overwhelmingly positive. We have rarely if ever received as many 10 out of 10 in our physician engagement events. The group appreciated how informative, supportive and eye-opening her content was as well as Marie-Helene’s engaging and energetic style. They reported leaving with a specific action plan and commitment to incorporate research-based resilience-building strategies in by the following week. Many commented on the need to bring this workshop to other physicians - colleagues and leaders included, which I fully agree with.
Co-Chair, Vancouver Physician Staff Association
Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier to present a bilingual keynote address at the annual Symposium of the Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (APEX) in 2015. This is a group of over 600 executives, some who were in the room, most attending via videoconferencing from other Canadian cities. To this day, I still put Dr. Pelletier’s name forward when asked about compelling speakers on workplace mental health and resilience. Working and interacting with Marie-Hélène in preparation for the event was effortless and professional. Her session was one of the best received of the entire event. Participants had noted her as being a thoughtful and well-prepared speaker, who delivered a highly relevant presentation with clear mastery of the subject and practical take-aways.
Deputy Executive Director and General Counsel, Environment Legal Services Department of Justice Canada
Inspiring, effective, engaging – those are just some of the comments we received from participants after Dr. Pelletier’s presentation. Many commented on how they gained a better understanding their own behaviours and thought patterns, and were motivated to take action on some of the tangible real-life strategies she provided. As an event planner, it was great to see our audience engage with her presentation while also experiencing personal learnings and benefits from her session.
Associate Director, Alumni Engagement at Beedie School of Business Simon Fraser University
Over a year ago at a SunLife event I met Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier who is a practicing psychologist in Canada and experienced senior leader with over 20 years of experience in clinical, counselling, and workplace psychology. She is one of those rare experts who truly grasps what it takes for us (both individually and organizations) to achieve goals that we may only dream of. As a colleague I am impressed with her speaking abilities. She inspires participants to take action that leads to results and does this with passion, knowledge, experience and joy. I encourage all who are truly interested in achieving optimal health for themselves and their organization to visit her website at www.drmhpelletier.com. I encourage you to follow her on https://twitter.com/drmhpelletier and if you see her on the schedule at a conference, don’t miss the experience of hearing and meeting her.
President Brigham and Associates, Inc. US
We thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Pelletier's participation in our event. Her professionalism yet approachability was palpable during both the keynote sessions as well as the panel. The subject matter is obviously something that she is comfortable with and passionate about. We would not hesitate in recommending her for similar events, and or asking her back for one of our future events.
Events Coordinator | Coordinatrice d’événements, The Association of Canadian Financial Officers (ACFO-ACAF)
Dr. Pelletier, I wanted to personally thank you for your well received keynote address on mental health resilience during our Labour Program Town Hall on February 16. I am still awaiting for official survey results but the feedback I’ve been hearing, with which I fully agree, has been that employees felt the content of your presentation was relevant and informative, while your delivery was engaging, inspiring and energetic. Myself and the Labour Program employees are especially happy to be leaving our Town hall with concrete, research-based strategies and tools to help build resilience in such unprecedented difficult times and for that, I am truly grateful.
Acting Deputy Minister, Labour Program (ESDC)

Speaker Videos

Dr. Marie Helene Pelletier
Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier