Publisher Note: This story focuses on the topic of mental health and suicide. For more information, see our editorial standards. If you or someone you know has suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Life in 988.
Shaun Carvalho knows that suicide prevention efforts can have a great impact.
Shawmut Design and Construction is one of the many actions during the week of construction suicide, which began on Monday. Shawmut, including Shawmut, welcome stalls, toolbox talks and education sessions to raise awareness of the subject. These events, Carvalho, often inspire workers to register with colleagues, friends and family to ensure that they are fine.
These checks are very necessary. The data around suicide in construction are desolate. Men that Works under construction die by suicide According to a rate of 56 deaths per 100,000 equivalent workers full -time, according to the control and prevention centers of diseases. The rate of women is 10.4 dead. The two rates are higher than the national average.
Here, Carvalho talks about construction of construction on the activities of his company this week, the importance of communication and how initiatives to increase conscience have begun to eliminate stigma on mental health.
The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Construction Division: What is planned by Shawmut for the Week of Prevention of Construction Suicide?
Shaun Carvalho: We had a moment of silence on Monday afternoon throughout the country. It was a national support, if you will, only for a moment to reflect on all the people who have died from suicide.
Shaun Carvalho
Permission granted by Shawmut
We will send our culture of attention on the consciousness and prevention of suicide to all our jobs. During the weekly security meeting of all hands, we will address this specific topic. We have guest speakers who go out to work. We have an executive leadership that goes to Jobsebe to offer these conversations and show this support from the top of the company.
And we already have many things in our set of tools to obtain training and awareness of suicide. It’s an online class. We also have our benefits program that is available for all 1,500 of our employees. So we remind everyone what is available to both their work and through our internal benefits program.
What do these benefits include?
Internal in Shawmut, we have many different benefits, such as health insurance. Through our team of strategies for the people and after the extension of Blue Cross Blue Shield, we have many offers for our employees through Mental Welfare and Welfare Services.
What has to happen is the conversation. People have to leave their protection from the perspective of leadership and say, “Today we will talk about mental health.”
Shaun Carvalho
Safety Chief, Shawmut
In the workplace, this is where things are broken down. We see 50,000 people who do not work directly for Shawmut, but they were in our jobs. So they are looking for us a direction, but they collect a check from a different entrepreneur and have the benefits of a different entrepreneur or maybe even a union. There is only so much help that we can provide them because they are not our direct employees.
At that time, what we do is collaborate with local unions, we collaborate with other companies to ensure that, in the event of a crisis or we need these people in our jobs to understand that they have something to support this and methods for help.
What is your guidance for commercial partners or subcontractors who want to involve?
Yesterday I had a private conversation with one of my best friends who was a little time now. And in this conversation, what happened was the need for more conversations and avoiding the “soft face” stigmatizing. This is really important.
What has to happen is the conversation. People have to leave their protection from the perspective of leadership and say, “Today we will talk about mental health.”
A smaller company is likely to be a union affiliate or have its own benefits program. So support the insurance companies, your employees’ account insurance, your health insurance. There are really smart people who have a lot of resources that could be given for free, but the company must be willing to have these conversations to stop operations for a moment and share information and be a bit vulnerable. And when you can do it and you can provide resources for people, you can make a big difference.
Are you getting better? Do the conversations move forward?
Yes, definitely. Years ago, when we started talking about total well -being, I remember that the first reaction we came to a suicidal awareness talk was overwhelmingly positive. Was curious about how it was received. I knew it would be an emotional issue, but not detrimental to people.
So, for the first time, the security manager reports: “I just had this talk, that several people came to me, very emotional thanking for -me to take the time to talk about things they had never heard, I would never have thought that they would have been discussed in construction.” Is in a job with more than 200 people at the security meeting. Some people said, “I have to leave, I have to review my friend or my family.”
And it was not this massive time of time that had hours and all these great paid speakers. It was a five -minute talk about a job that really affected people’s lives and made them think for a moment about themselves and the people around them, and then act.
I have heard enough stories of people who have suicide ideas or I know people who fight and have been close to suicide attempts. And at this dark moments, sometimes something happens when the phone sounds. This is what they needed at the right time. Therefore, for these people to react in the way they did it was all the validation we needed to say, “This is definitely correct. The more of these types of conversations can we do?” And it has been overwhelmingly positive.
