Supporting mental health in the construction industry
Arthur Chung, CEO, BCCA Employee Benefits Trust
T
he British Columbia Construction Association Employee Benefit Trust (BCCA EBT) says it’s about time that
the importance of maintaining mental health is as amplified as maintaining physical health. Over 53 years ago, the British Columbia Construction Association (BCCA) established the BCCA EBT. According to Arthur Chung, chief executive officer of the Trust, the initiative was started by a group of business owners who wanted to provide coverage to employees that weren’t on a union benefits plan. As a result, they created a fund that paid out health expenses incurred by those employees and their families. “For the past 12 years, we’ve self-administered the plan for the BCCA and
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regional construction associations, such as the Vancouver Island Construction Association (VICA),” says Chung. “We administer health, dental, and pooled benefits, which are group life insurance, accidental death, critical illness, and disability.” Chung says the goal of the Trust is to encourage employers to look at benefits as a necessary part of the total compensation package for employees to stay healthy and productive – not as a perk of the job or a cost. It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure employees’ mental and physical health are looked after, and the BCCA EBT helps employers do that. For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020, the Trust anticipated, and later confirmed, that it would cause a lot of stress. So, they
quickly determined that they needed to increase and promote access to their mental health supports. One significant change the Trust made was temporarily increasing the psychology benefit limits on their plans. The average benefits plan allows psychology benefits from $300 to $500 per year, but the Trust bumped it up – with no cost to the employer or employees – to $2,000 per year. That’s almost four times the original allowance. “That’s a number we are flexible with,” Chung says. “If we see claims where people are starting to pay out of pocket, we’ll adjust it. It’s not a fixed support we are providing at this point.” Another initiative the Trust put forth is access to therapy via a partnership with MindBeacon, which offers internet-
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