Evaluation Findings on Lessons Learned from the Implementation of the Public Health Leadership Program during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The Public Health Leadership program administered by the Public Health Branch at the Regional Municipality of York, ON, focused on enhancing people-centred competencies of managers to effectively support staff during the pandemic. The program aimed to boost participative management competencies and resiliency skills of managers by providing them with peer mentorship, ready-to-use resiliency tools, debriefing supports and actionable strategies in the form of e-blasts. Program participants provided feedback collected through two program evaluation surveys. This article describes the results of the qualitative evaluation by highlighting the key strategies and approaches that managers found most useful for enhancing their leadership practice. Key themes emerging from the evaluation indicate that the mentorship component had the most impact on the participants' leadership skills and confidence as a leader.

A Pandemic Leadership Program for Managers to Enhance Staff Resiliency and Psychological Safety during COVID-19.

The Public Health Branch of the Regional Municipality of York created a specialized team to ensure a people-centred approach for the deployment of the workforce during COVID-19. Due to increasing stress and staff burnout, there was an apparent need for enhanced leadership supports that would expand the skills of managers to apply participative management competencies and resiliency strategies within their teams. A range of leadership development activities were designed that included ready-to-use actionable tools, best practice interventions for resiliency development and comprehensive initiatives, such as mentorship and debriefing. Benefits include manager capacity development resulting in improvements in organizational resilience and psychological safety.

Promising Practices: Triple M-A Coaching and Mentorship Program for Public Health Leadership Development.

The Triple M (Mobilizing Meaningful Mentorship) program is a leadership development initiative at the public health branch of the Regional Municipality of York (York Region Public Health) that uses individual and team coaching and mentoring strategies. The Triple M program consists of one-on-one mentoring, stretch assignments, a Triple M challenge, team coaching and LEADS seminars. Triple M has the following benefits (a) organization-wide and cross-departmental connections, (b) application of leadership concepts and theory to a practical stretch assignment, (c) guidance and support from mentors to navigate challenges, and (d) the formation of the next generation of public health leaders. The lessons learned from this initiative include (a) that additional time is needed to apply program learnings during stretch assignments and (b) that adequate protected time is required to actively participate in the mentorship component of the program. The next steps for Triple M include (a) exploring ways to increase the duration of stretch assignments and (b) introducing an online platform to promote accessibility to participate in the program.