Lend Lease to introduce mental health and suicide prevention training

Lend Lease has introduced mental health and suicide prevention training across its building, engineering and services sites in Australia to help workers recognise the warning signs, support their colleagues and connect them to expert help.

Lend Lease Construction and Infrastructure Chief Operating Officer Dale Connor launched the new industry partnership with MATES in Construction in Sydney in March.

Dale Connor, Lend Lease C&I Chief Operating Officer, launching the new partnership.

“Construction workers are six times more likely to die by suicide than through a workplace accident, and young workers have been shown to be of particular high risk. We recognise the industry faces unique challenges such as stigma about men reaching out and asking for help,” he said.

“MATES in Construction is an industry-led approach to an industry problem. Lend Lease will offer the program not only to our own workers, but all workers on our projects including subcontractors and suppliers. Lend Lease will support MATES in Construction in reaching at least 20,000 construction workers per year nationally.

“To create the best places, we need the best people and we need to support our workers to be their best. The MATES in Construction program will support our workers to speak up, ask for support, or to recognise and offer help when a mate is struggling.”

MATES in Construction will deliver three levels of training for site workers: the one-hour General Awareness Training for all workers on a construction site; Connector training for selected workers that teaches signs to look out for and how to connect people at risk to help; and the highest level of training is the two-day Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) where workers learn how to help a person at risk of suicide.

“This training allows workers to recognise when a mate may be in difficulty or even contemplating suicide, and will give them the necessary skills to keep their mates safe whilst connecting them to help,” MATES in Construction CEO Jorgen Gullestrup said.

“Our mates helping mates approach is having a positive impact. In Queensland, where the program has been operating since 2008, the number of suicides has declined by 7.8% while male suicide rates generally have increased marginally.”

Lend Lease is already the largest user of the MATES in Construction program nationally training over 6000 workers each year. This industry partnership is a natural progression of Lend Lease’s commitment to better mental health in the workplace and is on top of the company’s work with beyondblue and Mental Health First Aid Australia.