By the end of 2018, all 440 employees from Bell Bay Aluminium will have undertaken mental health training from Rural Alive and Well Tasmania and beyondblue.
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This follows the smelter’s push to have every member of management, and and its onsite emergency response team, complete mental wellness training in a month’s time.
Bell Bay’s occupational health adviser Mary-Ann Seen said it was crucial for every company in the industry to have some form of mental health accreditation.
“As an industry we need to be promoting awareness and debunking the stigma [around mental illness],” she said.
“Most [of the industrial sector workforce] is dominantly male and aging, so that stigma of mental health is still there to a degree.
“It’s about getting it out there that it’s OK to talk about how you’re feeling.”
Tasmanian Mineral and Energy Council chief executive Wayne Bould said the unique nature of the minerals industry meant there were many potential stressors.
“Our work by nature is riskier and hours of work are longer,” he said.
“It often requires people to stay away from home with fly-in-fly-out work – this can cause tension in any situation, particularly with younger folks.”
Ms Seen noted that an increasing number of people were coming to seek help from her, with some impacted by external suicides.
Work-life balance and interpersonal conflicts were two recurrent issues in workplaces, according to Ms Seen.
“[Workers] may not get on with peers or leaders and sometimes their roles may conflict,” she said.
“If they’re not getting support from leadership that is another [cause of anxiety].
“Shift work in industrial workplaces is also a mental health stressor.”
Bell Bay’s increased focus on improving mental health outcomes stemmed from TMEC’s 2015 decision to incorporate mental health into its purview.
The result of this shift was the launch of its Blueprint for Mental Health and Wellbeing in 2017.
The blueprint intends to increase understanding of mental health, reduce stigma and increase support services in the industry.
Representatives from the council will start to visit each member company to assess what they have done to implement the blueprint.
“TMEC really pools resources to provide universal solutions to the problem,” Mr Bould said.
“We want the blueprint to outline the cause and effect of mental health in the workplace.”
For mental health support and guidance, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.