MENTAL HEALTH
“It just takes companies through asking themselves some questions
– ‘Do we have these things in place, do we have these conversations,
do we even have the means to have these conversations?’”
said Walker. “It’s not graded or ranked, it’s just for awareness and
then provides some action steps to take based on responses to
the questions.”
CIASP also provides an integration checklist to get started and
help pinpoint who in an organization should be involved and what
their role would be.
“It needs to be a whole company effort,” said Walker. “If it’s just
the safety person, you’re missing so many opportunities to get
in front of people and get the message out.”
Take the pledge
On CIASP’s website, contractors, industry support services and
other groups can take a pledge to “STAND” up for suicide prevention.
By signing the online pledge, organizations agree to create safe
cultures, provide training to identify and help those at risk, raise
awareness about the suicide crisis in construction, normalize
conversations around suicide and mental health and ultimately
decrease the risks associated with suicide in construction.
CIASP is currently only funded by donations from
the industry, and companies interested in financially
contributing to the cause are able to do so directly on the
www.preventconstructionsuicide.com website. t
PDCA signed the pledge to STAND up for suicide prevention in
December 2019, and will be addressing mental health and suicide
prevention in its communications, including in PileDriver magazine,
throughout 2020.
trouble if they say, ‘Hey, I think that he might have trouble with
drinking or drugs.’”
Just like with any safety culture, leadership support is required.
From there, integrate the conversation into different workplace
elements so that it becomes normal.
Walker believes that the construction industry will be able to
address suicide prevention in its workforce due to its already established
focus on safety.
“It’s really one of the beauties of construction,” she said. “As difficult
a topic as this is for many to buy into, those who choose to
buy into it can really do so successfully. The culture in construction
has been improving for the past few decades that it is our
responsibility to keep our employees safe, and this is just another
aspect to that.”
The Construction Industry Alliance for
Suicide Prevention
The Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention (CIASP)
was created in 2016 as an initiative by the Construction Financial
Management Association (CFMA).
“We had been taking steps within CFMA to address suicide
prevention in construction, but our audience was the CFOs and
controllers of companies, and while that was an important audience,
we knew we needed to get out much more broadly to the
industry,” said Walker. “We formed CIASP to bring the industry
together and get this information out and get other groups engaging
contractors to help save as many lives as possible.”
There are a host of resources on CIASP’s website –
www.preventconstructionsuicide.com – for construction
companies that want to begin addressing suicide prevention and
other mental health initiatives in their workplace.
Access printable posters to hang throughout your workplace to
start getting people familiar with the topic and how to talk about
it. Customizable toolbox talks can be used by any organization
and provide a template on how to frame a safety discussion that
revolves around mental health. CIASP also provides wallet cards
that outline the various warning signs and include crisis lines so
that people can have anytime access to the information.
“Those are three simple, no-cost steps that companies can take
to start getting this in front of their people,” said Walker.
To go a step further, companies can do a needs
analysis self-assessment using the resources on
www.preventconstructionsuicide.com.
Online
Resource
CIASP partnered with a training program offered by
LivingWorks, a leader in suicide prevention training
solutions. LivingWorks provides several different
training programs, but CIASP recommends one in
particular called Start due to its ease of access.
“It’s a 60- to 90-minute online training program,”
said Walker. “It’s interactive and customized to the
user. It’s situational-based learning, and allows you
to walk through how you would respond to different
situations – what are the warning signs to pick up on,
and how do you react?”
The training is meant to be a baseline; after
completion, a participant would be better equipped
to ask someone in their workplace if they’re
contemplating suicide. The LivingWorks Start program
is only US$30.
More construction workers
die by suicide each year
than any other industry.
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/www.preventconstructionsuicide.com
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