Tag: Mental Health

A number of vending machines with a difference have recently been installed across various WA minesites, but instead of dispensing confectionery, chips and soft drinks, they provide essential oils, healthy snacks and sleep sprays. It’s all to do with helping keep the FIFO workplace a healthy place to work in. The 24/7 “wellness stations”, placed in mining camps, provides support in workplaces where mental health issues have been prevalent, and to help break the statistics of unhappiness in workplaces, schools and other communities. They are a highly visible, self-service solution for employees to easily access a range of practical tools and products that can help improve wellbeing, general health and state of mind. The company behind the roll-out — Perth’s…

Resources and energy employers have been equipped with a new practical framework to assist them in navigating the industry’s distinct workforce mental health challenges, including varying rosters, remote isolation and fly-in, fly-out working arrangements. The Resources and Energy Industry Workforce Mental Health Framework is the latest initiative from Australian Resources and Energy Group AMMA, assisting employers in their shared commitment to building and maintaining mentally healthy workplaces. The industry-first framework further builds upon the resources and energy industry’s strong motivations to drive continual improvement in workforce mental health policies and initiatives. Organisations are provided with the theoretical tools to break down their workforce mental health and wellness capability from a policy, program and practical perspective. Employers can then benchmark their…

FORMER cricketer Brad Hogg has swapped the cricket bat for a microphone to interview mining workers about their mental health, in a new video project for Lifeline WA and its partner the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA (CME). Called A Resourceful Life – Hoggy talks to everyday heroes, the project will feature Hogg having an open and honest chat to resource sector workers about their personal experiences of mental health and how they’ve overcome the challenges of working away from home. Hogg is a former T-20 and Australian test cricketer, and as a Lifeline WA ambassador, has been open about his struggles with alcoholism and depression. He said it was especially important for men to talk to other men openly…

IT could be the calming sensation you feel when you walk in the front door of your home and kick off your shoes, or sense of camaraderie you feel at your local sport club, or any attachment you feel to a place that reflects your identity – a sense of place can mean many things. It is something that architects and interior designers try to incorporate into their designs, and there is extensive research that shows not only how a positive attachment to the place where we live is important to identity, but that the absence of this connection can be devastating to mental health. A sense of place is not something normally associated with the clinical, sterile accommodation of…

ISOLATION, long swings, 12-hour shifts and a culture that shuns vulnerability are, according to FIFO Zero co-founder Blake Wood, the major contributing factors to the shockingly high levels of mental health and substance abuse problems among FIFO workers. Mr Wood faced his own demons when his nine-year FIFO career descended into chronic anxiety, panic attacks, depression and suicidal thoughts, and after losing a close friend to suicide, Mr Wood decided to get help. After taking George Helou’s EP7 seven-step program, Mr Wood and Mr Helou created an adaptation of that program – FIFO Zero – a targeted and practical way for FIFO workers to get the follow up help they need to stamp out suicide among FIFO workers. Mr Wood…