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Seventeen months after Bechtel pledged to $ 7 million For the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the team launches a brand campaign combined with a set of suicide prevention tools for contractors, shared with the immersion of construction.
Hard Hat Courage, the initiative built by the collaboration together with an advisory board of the CEO, will try to deal with the high construction suicide rates and prioritize mental health along with physical security. The initiative will armam companies of different sizes with resources and mental health education and suicide prevention, adapted to the building industry.
Reston, Bechtel’s donation to Virginia to AFSP was the largest in non -profit history. For five years, funds will help collaborate in reaching their goal of reaching 500,000 employees in all US
“These new tools provide help, anytime, anywhere, so that no one in our construction family has to face only a mental health struggle,” said Brendan Bechtel, president and CEO of the firm. “It’s another step in making mental health care routine and accessible as a hard hat to the workplace.”
Along with the meetings of the CEO Advisory Group, AFSP, he spread to dozens of construction organizations, leaders and workers at all levels. This helped his leaders to understand the perspectives and experiences of the data, said Dr. Christine Yu Moutier, medical director of the AFSP.
“We are really looking to contribute to the change of culture,” Moutier told Construction Dive. “Really transforming mental health and suicide, the use of substances can be similarly addressed that the industry has been so successful in reducing physical injuries and mortality and the application of this model to the framework of mental health and suicide.”
Resources and conversations
As part of the launch of Hard Hat Courage, AFSP has developed toolbox conversations that contractors can bring to the workplace. The guidelines for a brief conversation aim to break down stigma around suicide and mental health discussion, encourage workers to be more supportive as colleagues and educate warning signs to better incorporate mental health in the safety of workplace.
In talking to the advisers and Bechtel, Moutier said, the AFSP discovered that interest groups wanted to adapt to discussions in the normal day-to-day flow of work. Ideally, AFSP will develop and share at least 52 toolbox talks.
The initiative also includes a set of tools for construction entrepreneurs who respond after a colleague dies from suicide. The documentation provides tips on the creation of a crisis response team to prepare for a tragedy, oriented to communicate with the whole company about the news and even a checklist for actions to take a suggested one-month calendar.
Moutier said that, although individually, contractors cannot experience a death to a worker by suicide often, but knowing how to react can make a difference.
“The branches of not being prepared for this or being trapped are not ready is to be unpaid,” said Moutier. “People are in a way to feel -already stressed.”
Responding properly can also ensure more safe communication for other workers who are struggling with mental health or suicide thoughts that may be affected by the loss of a co -worker, said Moutier.
“The contagion of suicide is actually a real phenomenon that can occur,” Moutier said. “It occurs when vulnerable people are exposed to peer suicide or the death of famous suicide is sent by the media so that they can bring people vulnerable to their desire to die.”
Knowing the right language can ensure that company leaders can still care for the most vulnerable.
Be prepared, imply
Moutier said he hoped that the initiative with Bechtel and that the CEO Advisory Board could be a step for other industries, providing a model to promote the conversation.
And the conversation has improved in recent years.
“The fact that it happens in so many industries and so many organizations is very different from what it was, for example, 15 years ago, where there was still so much stigma that people were not sure if we could talk about the subject even safely,” said Moutier.
For contractors who want to involve, Bechtel hopes that the consciousness factor of the toolbox conversations and the hard hat courage brand will push them to take action, not only once, but repeatedly, incorporating the practice.
“We know that tackling mental health in construction is not a unique effort,” Bechtel told Construction Dive. “It requires constant attention and better tools in the hands of those who need it most.”
