YOUR ORGANISATION AND HEALTH AND WELLNESS
STRATEGIES
PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH AND SAFETY AND LEGISLATIVE REQUIREMENTS IS THE MESSAGE AAPA AND THE BRAVEHEART FREEDOM FIGHTERS CHARITY ARE JOINTLY WORKING ON TO INCREASE AWARENESS AND EDUCATION AROUND THE HIGHLY TOPICAL AREA OF EMPLOYEE HEALTH AND WELLNESS. The Braveheart program focuses on these six underlying triggers for mental health.
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n late March 2020, the World Health Organisation released a paper detailing mental health and psychosocial considerations during the COVID-19 outbreak. In the following months Australia’s unemployment rate jumped to 7.4 per cent, leaving manyuncertain about employment and stressed over financial burdens. In 2018, Safe Work Australia reported 144
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ROADS SEPTEMBER 2020
people were fatally injured at work and in the same year the Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded 3046 suicides across the country. Long before the pandemic, a 2016 Mates in Construction report found the age adjusted suicide rate in Australia for those working in construction was 24.6 per 100,000, compared to 13.4 per 100,000 for those in other occupations. This demonstrated the significant mental
health challenges faced in construction when operating as usual. Recent changes to Victorian WorkSafe tolls are also highlighting the importance of a strong focus on good mental health. In July 2020, the Victorian State Government broadened the criteria that defines a workplace death to include suicides attributable to a workplace health and safety failure, this will now be recognised in the WorkSafe toll.
