The Bloomfield Group is stepping up their mental health support in the workplace, giving every worker a wearable reminder of the assistance that is available to them if they need it, and letting them know it’s okay to not only ask for help if you need it, but talk about it.
Each worker has received a TradeMutt shirt, and each new employee will also receive one as a gift to show one of the ways that Bloomfield promotes and supports mental health.
TradeMutt was started by Dan Allen and Ed Ross in 2018 after Dan lost one of his mates to suicide. They decided to bring some colour to a dark conversation, creating funky eye-catching workwear that starts a conversation and makes an invisible issue impossible to ignore.
The duo also started TIACS, a not-for-profit text and call counselling service that stands for ‘This Is A Conversation Starter’. The service is for any blue-collar worker and their loved ones and has already helped more than 18,500 people for free.
Renata Roberts, the Chief Corporate Services Officer at Bloomfield Group, said one of their workers had heard about the initiative and came to them with an idea.
“One of our team members had a mental health experience close to her heart and heard about these TradeMutt shirts. She put it to us and suggested we take up the shirts on site.
“We have been recognised through awards in the mental health space previously, so our CEO Brett Lewis was very much on board with the idea. We are very committed to promoting mental health, so this was a really visible way to do it.
“Brett quickly endorsed the idea, so in our annual clothing order to everyone the employees got to select a TradeMutt shirt to wear to work, and all our new starters will be given one as a gift. It’s now a permanent fixture of our clothing order.
“I was really impressed with the take up, I love it. I went out around our sites and everyone from our engineering team, operators, trades, office staff, everyone was wearing the shirt which was great to see,” Renata reflected.
Renata said she’s had a number of conversations across site with employees saying they felt comfortable telling someone they didn’t feel great or asking someone if they were okay because they were wearing the shirt.
The TradeMutt shirts have the TIACS contact information on them, but for Bloomfield’s order they asked for an additional number to be included.
“TradeMutt let us partner with our current EAP provider NewPsych Psychologists and put their phone number on the shirt as well. Obviously, we promote and encourage people to go to the EAP but if you have 600 shirts with it on it as well it’s hard not to find the number if you need it!
“Getting people to be more comfortable talking about mental health is the only way forward. We must break that stigma.
“These initiatives big or small are a huge step towards closing that gap. Hopefully it won’t just help in the workplace, it’ll help in the community as well when the guys go and get petrol or do their groceries wearing the TradeMutt shirts,” said Renata.
According to ‘Mates in Mining’, between 11 and 25 (per 100,000 mining workers) die by suicide each year and blue-collar workers in male-dominated industries are at higher risk of suicide than other employed men.
Mental health is everyone’s business, research has shown workers find it difficult to discuss feelings and emotions with colleagues at work due to the nature of the work making social support more difficult. But that is changing and initiatives like TradeMutt and companies like Bloomfield are making a huge difference.
| If you need support contact TIACS: call or text 0488 846 988 Lifeline: 13 11 14 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) |
