ONLINE RESOURCE
The Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention (CIASP)
partnered with a training program offered by LivingWorks, a
Calgary-based leader in suicide prevention training solutions.
LivingWorks provides several training programs, but CIASP recommends
one in particular called Start due to its ease of access.
“It’s a 60- to 90-minute online training program,” said Michelle
Walker, chair of CIASP. “It’s interactive and customized to the
user. It’s situational-based learning and allows you to walk
through how you would respond to different situations – what
are the warning signs to pick up on and how do you react?”
The training is meant to be a baseline; after completion, a participant
would be better equipped to ask someone in their workplace
if they’re contemplating suicide. The LivingWorks Start program
is only $36.
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Walker believes that the construction industry will be
able to address suicide prevention in its workforce due to its
already established focus on safety.
“It’s really one of the beauties of construction,” she said.
“As difficult a topic as this is for many to buy into, those who
choose to buy into it can really do so successfully. The culture
in construction has already been for decades that it is
our responsibility to keep our employees safe, and this is just
another aspect to that.”
The Construction Industry Alliance for
Suicide Prevention
CIASP was created in 2016, as an initiative by the Construction
Financial Management Association (CFMA).
“We had been taking steps within CFMA to address suicide
prevention in construction, but our audience was the
CFOs and controllers of companies, and while that was an
important audience, we knew we needed to get out much
more broadly to the industry,” said Walker. “We formed
CIASP to bring the industry together and get this information
out and get other groups engaging contractors to help save as
many lives as possible.”
There are a host of resources on CIASP’s website –
www.preventconstructionsuicide.com – for construction
companies that want to begin addressing suicide prevention
and other mental health initiatives in their workplace.
Access printable posters to hang throughout your workplace
to start getting people familiar with the topic and how
to talk about it. Customizable toolbox talks can be used by
any organization and a template on how to frame a safety
discussion that revolves around mental health is provided.
CIASP also provides wallet cards that outline the various
warning signs and include crisis lines so people can have anytime
access to the information.
“Those are three simple, no-cost steps that companies can
take to start getting this in front of their people,” said Walker.
To go further, companies can do a needs analysis selfassessment
using the resources on the CIASP website.
“It just takes companies asking themselves some questions:
‘Do we have these things in place, do we have these
conversations, do we even have the means to have these conversations?’”
said Walker. “It’s not graded or ranked, it’s just
for awareness and then provides some action steps to take
based on responses to the questions.”
CIASP also provides an integration checklist to get started
and help pinpoint who in an organization should be involved
and what their role would be.
“It needs to be a whole company effort,” said Walker. “If it’s
just the safety person, you’re missing so many opportunities
to get in front of people and get the message out.”
This article originally appeared in PileDriver and is reprinted
here with permission.
FEATURE
22 Q1 2020 www.pilingcanada.ca
/www.preventconstructionsuicide.com
/www.pilingcanada.ca
