Dear _______, 
I am writing to you today because it’s come to my attention that our benefit plan limits our choices for mental health services. Please explore adding social workers to the list of professionals covered in our benefits plan. 
Healthy workplaces benefit everyone: employers, employees and their families, and society. Likewise, being unwell can be costly in multiple ways; the impact of mental health on Canadian society is staggering, affecting an estimated one in five Canadians and costing the economy at least $50 billion a year. The amount of time spent in hospital in 2018 for mental health disorders was the equivalent of taking 340 people out of Nova Scotia society, for a full year.
I think you’ll agree that sustaining and retaining healthy, productive employees is in the best interest of any successful organization. Timely access to professional mental health services when needed is key to achieving this. 
Many Registered Social Workers practice with a clinical focus and specialize in evidence-based therapeutic approaches. Rather than focusing on individuals exclusively, social workers consider individuals in the context of their environment and their connections to other people. Social workers use age, gender and culturally-sensitive interventions to address mental health, addiction, trauma, grief and loss, relationship and adjustment issues; offer stress and crisis management; perform mediation, dispute resolution, custody & access and capacity assessments, and much more.
I’ve learned that our current benefits plan does not yet cover professional social work services. This limits our ability to access the mental health care that employees and our families need in a reasonable amount of time, which affects your ability to maintain a healthy work force. 
Fortunately, the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers (NSCSW) has learned that most insurance providers will make this improvement to a benefit plan at zero cost if the employer requests the change.
Registered Social Workers who are authorized by the NSCSW to independently provide specialized clinical services are known as Private Practitioners. There are 260 Private Practitioners in Nova Scotia and 50% of them provide services outside of the HRM; expanding access to hundreds of skilled mental health professionals will increase our ability to get support for ourselves and our loved ones where we live and when we need it, cutting or eliminating wait times for counselling and therapy services.
You can help bridge a crucial gap in health care with a small change, at little or no cost. Offering coverage for social work melds compassion with good business sense.
I would welcome an opportunity to discuss this opportunity further. You can also visit the NSCSW website at nscsw.org if you have questions about the scope of social work and its potential benefits.
Sincerely,
________