Collaborative Action Forum Announced

On 21 July 2020, Kent Business School is organising a Collaborative Action Forum on the Implementation of Suicide Prevention in Construction & Trades.

On 21^st July 2020, Kent Business School is organising a Collaborative Action Forum on the Implementation of Suicide Prevention in Construction & Trades. The Forum will take place online and is open to all interested parties welcoming interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral viewpoints. The aim of the forum is to function as a platform for discussions on the challenges of organisational suicide prevention in the industry by business, non-profit organisations and government and explore the emerging collaborations across different stakeholder organisations for improved and effective prevention. The Collaborative Action Forum will host presentations from organisations that will focus on the implementation of suicide prevention identifying key challenges and opportunities at the organisational, industry and community levels with the aim to integrate the latest thinking and best practices in this important area.

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Keynote Speakers to include:

• Professor Murad Moosa Khan, President, International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP)
• Professor Diego De Leo, past director of the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP), World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Research and Training in Suicide Prevention at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia
• Professor Tony LaMontagne, Professor of Work, Health & Wellbeing at the Centre for Population Health Research in the School of Health & Social Development at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia

Further speakers to include:

• Elizabeth Hampson, Director, Health and Life Sciences Strategy at Deloitte
• Bill Hill, CEO, The Lighthouse Club, Construction Industry Charity
• Andy Stevens, Eclipse Property Consultants Ltd
• Carl Wales, Safety, Health and Environmental Manager, The Wates Group 
• Alison Warner, Director, Evolve and Grow Coaching
• Kevin Fear, Health and Safety Policy lead, Construction Industry Training Board 
• Lewis Smith-Connell, Project Manager Zero Suicide Alliance
• John Frith, Chief People Officer at Checkatrade
• Sally Evans, UK Wellbeing Lead, PwC
• Prof. Rob van Tulder, Professor of International Business-Society Management, RSM Academic Director Partnerships Resource Cente, Erasmus University.
• Chris Lockwood, National CEO for MATES in Construction, Mining and Energy

The event will be moderated by British journalist and mental health advocate, Mark Rice-Oxley from The Guardian and is sponsored by Evolve and Grow Coaching.

The event is part of a research project on suicide prevention in the construction industry led by Dr M. May Seitanidi, Reader in Strategy and Dr Krystin Zigan, Lecturer in Strategy.

Suicide as a serious global public health issue affects 800,000 people approximately who complete suicide every year (WHO, 2020). The World Health Organization (WHO) has prioritised suicide mortality, causing more deaths than malaria, breast cancer, or war and homicide, as a global target, and it is now included in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under target 3.4 (WHO, 2019; UNSDGs, 2020). Between 2000 and 2016 suicide mortality rates dropped around the world, by 16% in men and 20% in women, with men almost twice as likely to complete suicide (WHO, 2020).

Despite progress in the global suicide rate (8% reduction from 2010–2016), every 40 seconds one person dies of suicide (WHO, 2018). The current rate of reduction will be insufficient to reach the target set by the UN 2030 Agenda i.e. to reduce suicides by one third (UN, 2020a). Hence, suicide prevention is critical in saving millions of lives around the world. In order to increase the effectiveness of prevention, we need to gain more insights into how organisations understand and implement suicide prevention which will allow us to optimise the global, national and local efforts.

In the UK, every day 13 people take their lives (Public Health England, 2016). A total of 13,232 suicides by working people were recorded for the period 2011-2015 (Suicide by Occupation England, 2017), 10.6% (1,400 people) in construction, elevating it to the “deadliest profession in the UK” (Rice-Oxley, 2019). Low skilled workers in construction had the highest risk that was 3.7 times above the national average and within the Construction and Trades industry workers have 1.6 times higher risk of suicide than the national average in men (Suicide by Occupation England, 2017).

Given the scale of the problem in the construction industry, the government and industry call for improvement of suicide prevention implementation and the numerous initiatives taken by organisations, it is important to discuss the challenges of implementing suicide prevention in the industry and across organisations to avoid fragmentation of efforts.

We see the event as an opportunity to involve people with lived experience of suicide prevention who can and do make important contributions to studying this issue. Today, in the UK Citizen Science is an important methodology for research funders, charities, and healthcare. Our research embraces the aims of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA), including sustainability, environmental and societal, participation of disadvantaged and marginalized, dissemination of best practices and excellence, policymakers on a local to a global scale to be informed and provided expertise, research on citizen science, and community building in civil society. – Citizen Science

References:

• ONS, 2017. Suicide by occupation, England: 2011 to 2015

• Public Health England, 2016. Local suicide prevention planning National Suicide Prevention Alliance.

• Rice-Oxley, M., 2019. Why do so many construction workers kill themselves? The Guardian.

• WHO, 2020. Key Facts, Newsroom.

• WHO, 2020a. World Health Statistics. Monitoring Health for the SDGs. 

• WHO, 2019. Promote Health Keep the World Safe Serve the Vulnerable. Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–2023. 

• WHO, 2019a. Suicide: one person dies every 40 seconds.

• WHO, 2018. Live Life.

• WHO, 2018a. National suicide prevention strategies. Progress, examples and indicators.

• WHO, 2014. Preventing Suicide a Global Imperative.

• WHO, 2013. Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2020.

• UN SDGs, 2020. Sustainable Development Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

We look forward to your participation

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