A multi-year Ontario study will test whether one-on-one coaching can build resilience in first responders and healthcare workers before they develop work-related mental health injuries, a question with a clear cost angle for the employers, compensation system and benefits plans that pay when prevention fails.
BetterUp Canada, the Toronto-based arm of US virtual coaching company BetterUp, announced the Ontario Frontline Study on October 9, ahead of World Mental Health Day. Eligible first responders and healthcare workers in Ontario will receive six months of free coaching and may be paid for taking part.
BetterUp’s enrolment page sets out the design. Participants are randomly assigned to immediate coaching or to deferred coaching that starts six months later, and everyone gets access to coaching either way. The page refers to a 12-month study with brief pulse checks, and workers must be putting in at least 100 hours a month (or 25 a week) to qualify. Employers who direct staff to the study receive only aggregated, de-identified results. BetterUp has not said how many people will take part or which outcomes it will measure beyond resilience, stress and overall well-being.
The announcement describes the study as being run in partnership with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB) but does not set out the board’s role. BetterUp says it partners with organizations including EllisDon, Loblaw Companies and the WSIB.
The coaching method was developed with Martin Seligman, the University of Pennsylvania psychology professor widely regarded as the founder of positive psychology, who has sat on BetterUp’s science board since 2018. Seligman said the study could give a definitive, large-scale answer to whether resilience can be built before people are in crisis and whether it protects them from the occupational toll of high-stress work. “I’ve been waiting my whole career to do this study,” he said.
University of British Columbia Okanagan psychology professor Lesley Lutes, an advisor on the study, said most mental health resources in Canada sit in the private sector and that research like this could build evidence for a scalable way to reach frontline workers.
The study goes to the heart of a claims issue Ontario has grappled with for a decade. In 2016, the province passed Bill 163, which established a presumption that PTSD diagnosed in first responders is work-related unless shown otherwise.
Claims rose sharply after that. A study published in the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation in December 2025 analyzed 11,306 approved WSIB mental stress claims filed by Ontario public safety personnel between 2014 and 2023. Claims rose by more than 400% between 2014 and 2018 before levelling off at about 1,600 a year, and the authors said the presumptive legislation may partly explain the increase. PTSD made up 55% of claims, and police and paramedics accounted for more than 60%.
The claims are long and difficult to close. Some 93.3% involved time lost from work, the median claim ran 14.4 months, and only 35.7% of claimants had a successful return to work documented. Prevention programs that worked would change that economics: fewer injuries would mean fewer claims and shorter absences.
BetterUp lists the WSIB among its Canadian partners, and the release does not detail what the board contributes to the study. Whatever its role, the results could matter beyond the compensation system. Healthcare workers in the study may sit partly outside the presumptive framework and rely on group disability and extended health plans for mental health claims. If coaching proves effective at preventing those injuries, insurers and plan sponsors would have a case for funding it up front.
