Recently Karon and Erin from MATES in Construction came out to do an introduction to their services. They have 3 key focus areas to work towards their vision of significantly improving mental wellness and reducing suicide in the construction industry:
- To advance mental health and social services in New Zealand by promoting the prevention and control of mental illness for people engaged in the construction industry.
- Providing leadership for our people to gain better access to mental health services.
- Building a stronger more resilient workforce.
Their presentation showed some hard facts about suicide rates in New Zealand and specifically in relation to the construction industry. Did you know that every week on average, 10 New Zealanders die by suicide. Many more are treated in hospital after a suicide attempt, having seriously harmed themselves. Sadly, we have some of the highest youth suicide rates in the OECD and suicide rate for Māori are over 50 percent higher than for non-Māori.
Becoming a partner of MATES in Construction enables Solo to be part of a programme tasked with reducing the number of people dying by suicide within our industry and creating a community within our workplace that is about MATES helping MATES.
It also shows that at Solo we care about our people and prioritise their health, safety and mental wellbeing.
