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leaders in health: megan mantle and caring for caregivers through workhorse health

megan mantle, a toronto social worker, psychotherapist and former crisis intervention specialist has lived experience in spades.

by karen hawthorne

sep 24 2024
read time 7 minute read
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megan mantle, left, with one of her mentors, registered psychotherapist elaine paz, from toronto-based “what if counselling.” supplied
people talk about how lived experience can make us better at our jobs because we have a personal understanding of what’s needed most. megan mantle, a toronto social worker, psychotherapist and former crisis intervention specialist has lived experience in spades. it’s given her the motivation to start her own company and work to solve some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare in canada.
she grew up on a vineyard in niagara-on-the-lake, ont., surrounded by gorgeous countryside and the charms that have made the area an iconic wine destination. those early days were idyllic in many ways, until her dad got sick. he struggled with severe depression and became withdrawn and listless, spending hours in bed and on the couch. her mom was working and running the household, so megan, the oldest of four kids, felt she needed to take on the responsibility of being his caregiver.
“it was the obvious choice for me to help him, in my child’s mind, not knowing and not having the resources i do now. i actually thought that i could save him,” she says. her commitment to her father in her last years of high school affected her academics, her social life and her own health.
“it was an overwhelming situation. it impacted my eating patterns, my sleep. that’s what stress does to the body and everyone responds differently to the pressure.” she holds onto the good moments, like when he told her he missed her when she wasn’t there with him, which at the time was like a reward for her devotion – which made the outcome more complicated and tragic.

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in 2005, a month after her 19th birthday, her dad committed suicide.
“it was the most stressful thing that’s ever happened to me in my life up until that point and since that point,” she admits, adding there was no other way but forward. she had to claw her way out of grief and get strong.
“i just had this deep knowing that i would be able to channel this traumatic experience of the loss of my father to help other people.”

turning tragedy into an opportunity to help others

it marked the beginning of a professional journey that brought her to social work and psychotherapy to equip others with the tools and knowledge to get through difficult circumstances. the answers aren’t black and white, she notes, but people can develop skills and lean on their support networks and develop new networks. if they can adapt during those challenging circumstances and recognize that they can equip themselves to succeed, then they’re able to take responsibility for their own wellbeing.
“people suffer so much because they’re helping other people. i want to honour that and acknowledge it.  and then i want to assess their situation and help them make it better,” she says, stressing she wants to get the message across that people are not alone in this.
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canadian centre for caregiving excellence

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“for people who are struggling, caring for someone they love and they’re in an unpaid role, it’s one of these very typical situations. they’re not doctors, they’re not professionals. but they feel compelled, just like me, to care for someone. i appreciate how isolating that can be, and you need to know it’s ok, whether you’re angry or frustrated, or it can be very anxiety-provoking for people. there’s a lot of fear, but there is hope. there are resources and professionals out there that can assist you and it can get better.”

one in three unpaid caregivers in canada are distressed, according to research by the canadian institute for health information . the term “distressed” can reflect feelings of anger or depression, or the inability to continue with caring activities. these caregivers spend an average of 38 hours a week providing care, which is the equivalent of a full-time job. also, caregivers who live with the person receiving home care are twice as likely to be distressed as those who do not. among those who live together, about half are spouses and a third are adult children caring for their parents.

as the canadian caregiver coalition reports , 15 per cent of caregivers in ontario are between 15 and 25 years old. “there are many people under the age of 25 that care for a family member, it’s remarkable. and one of them was me.”

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megan worked as a crisis intervention specialist in toronto-area emergency departments for more than 10 years, collaborating with doctors and psychiatrists to care for patients with mental health disorders, and helping families cope through some of the worst days of their lives. many patients had attempted suicide by an intentional overdose, for example, in a desperate cry for help. when they needed to stay in hospital, megan would be talking to them for emotional support and then speaking with their family.
“you’d have patients come in with maybe their mother or father, but sometimes five or six people trying to help their loved ones. and they don’t know what to do, so it really spoke to me how important it is to be supported.”
megan mantle had to start somewhere with a home office setup, which included some help from a furry friend.
megan mantle had to start somewhere with a home office setup, which included some help from a furry friend. supplied
megan also witnessed the toll on her colleagues and recognized the need for self-care, like having mentors to learn from and making sure she was eating properly and tools like using deep breathing to help adjust to seeing people in pain.

the beginning of workhorse health

when covid shut everything down and put healthcare into a seismic shift to promote telemedicine, megan saw the opportunity and the need for her services in virtual care. she cleaned out her walk-in closet at home to set up her office to offer psychotherapy to frontline health professionals through her company workhorse health . “for me, i was thinking, ‘people need help so much, especially in healthcare. they’re so anxious and burned out and traumatized by everything, and that’s a service that i could provide.’”

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as she candidly declares: “i’m obsessed with the problem of caregiver burnout.”

a 2021 national survey from the canadian medical association suggests more than half of canada’s doctors and nurses are overwhelmed and feeling burned out. where are we at today? a 2024 study of public healthcare workers in canada found that the prevalence of burnout was 78.7 per cent.

almost four years later, megan’s company for family-funded services in ontario is focused on healthcare providers who are still struggling. the compounding problem is many of them are also caring for someone at home – they have dual roles as professional healthcare providers and caregivers looking after aging parents or other family members. in addition, the role of professional healthcare provider is also guiding family members of their patients who are an integral part of the care team, listening to instructions on medications and therapies and helping their loved one follow the prescribed routine. these family members are facing the difficult transition to caregivers and the challenges that arise.
through virtual sessions, her team of registered social workers, psychotherapists and nurses develop individual care plans to equip people with tools to improve their mental health and tap into resources. caregiving in any capacity can wear you down.

embracing technology for the future of care

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but she says the bigger problem in all this is a healthcare system that is not embracing technology. maybe it’s not a problem of staffing in hospitals, she says, but lack of tech resources for frontline caregivers to streamline care.
to this end, she’s created a network of professionals, including nurses, social workers and physicians who share an interest in finding solutions for families with caregiving challenges. she’s also tapped into interest from technology developers who are looking at generative artificial intelligence, or ai, to create models for care delivery. “my vision is that we can work together as healthcare providers in canada to include these technologies.”
she and others in her network want to help health providers to streamline their work so they can do it faster and more comprehensively. with ai, they can have a large language model where they’re drawing on massive amounts of data to help them identify patients with mental decline like her dad for early intervention.
“the average health provider in the gta is not including the latest technology in the care they’re providing for patients. and that’s a problem. that’s a huge missed opportunity. so, a way that we can include it, for example, is like using these large language models to access the library of data that is specific to the aging population and caregiving issues that we can draw on to better inform the care that we provide.”

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the goal is to use solutions identified through data and use the evidence of those solutions to inform care, all with careful proofing for privacy and other concerns.
megan is relentless in her pursuits, demanding innovation in the space: “why can’t healthcare contribute to developing best practices in the use of technology?”
karen hawthorne
karen hawthorne

karen hawthorne worked for six years as a digital editor for the national post, contributing articles on health, business, culture and travel for affiliated newspapers across canada. she now writes from her home office in toronto as a freelancer, and takes breaks to bounce with her son on the backyard trampoline and walk bingo, her bull terrier.

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