Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Lauren Donnan: MATES in Construction Research Manager on the spike in suspected suicides in the sector

Transcript

Lauren Donnan: MATES in Construction Research Manager on the spike in suspected suicides in the sector · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There were eighty suspected suicides in the construction industry last year.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: That is a record high. And the Mates and Construction
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Industry Group, who are a charity, they want to improve
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: well being and reduce that number. They have released some
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: new research this morning which is interesting. It found that
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: eighty five percent of workers reported positive mental well being.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: That's ten percent more than the year previous. Doctor Lauren
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: donnan is with us this morning. She's from Mates and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Constructed and conducted this research. Thank you for being with us.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Thank you for having me.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Can I start what period of time is this new
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  Speaker 1: data for? Because the industry is struggling at the moment,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: so I was surprised to hear that there was an
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  Speaker 1: uptick in positive feelings.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the particular piece of research you're referring to is
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: between August and November of last year.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that might help explain some of that. What
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: are you putting this down to? This increase?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Think it's really important that we do research annually so
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: we can understand the trends year on year and also
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  Speaker 2: understand what is working well and what's not going so well,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: so we can see underneath that eighty five percent.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: What does it look like and what is it telling you?
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  Speaker 2: It's telling us that year on year, overall wellbeing seems
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: to be improving, but that there are key groups that
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: are needing extra support within our industry, and those groups
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: have higher distress and lower mental wellbeing. And those are
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: workers like al Dangatahi aged fifteen to twenty four, our
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: non binary and female workers. And interestingly, this year we
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: looked at workers at the disability illness or mental illness
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  Speaker 2: and that was a group that really needed extra support,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: and one in five workers told us that they had
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: a disability or illness. When you think about the sides
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: of that group, it's over two thousand workers. I mean, yeah,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: quite a sign finding for us.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: It is, it is very significant. What do you so?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Twenty twenty one there was seventy percent reported you know,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: positive mental wellbeing. Twenty twenty two that was seventy five percent,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, eighty five percent. Is is it possible
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: that because we're talking more about it and the industry
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: is talking more about it, that's helping people to feel better?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: One hundred percent. I think what we're seeing and what
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  Speaker 2: our staff who are out on the ground every day
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  Speaker 2: talking to workers. Is that shift in the culture on
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: sites and being able to talk about mental health, that
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  Speaker 2: really early intervention stuff that we're doing where we get
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: in there and we make sure that work is still
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: comfortable having those courageous conversations, and I think that raised
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: awareness around mental wellbeing is really helping.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time. Really interesting research,
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  Speaker 1: as I said, that's come out this morning. Doctor Lauren
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Donnan with us from Mates and Construction. She's the research
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: manager there.
• 3:00
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• 3:03
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• 3:06
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