HELP INSIDE THE HARD HAT CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT CONSTRUCTION WORKFORCE
HELP INSIDE THE HARD HAT CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT CONSTRUCTION WORKFORCE
The Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity is launching their hard hitting and poignant ‘Help Inside the Hard Hat’ campaign to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week. The campaign aims to raise awareness of mental wellbeing issues in our industry and more importantly, how our workforce can reach out for help.
This is a campaign to get construction talking and it addresses the perception that construction workers are often seen as being ‘hard’ on the outside; always ready with a quip or keeping up with the alpha male image on site or at work. But research shows that simply isn’t true and the charity deals first hand with the results of not addressing issues ‘inside the hard hat’. The vibrant posters and hoardings deliver four thought provoking quotes;
“He was our big mouth – he’d always have an answer for everything, except for why he should still be here”
“He was the last off site every day, then one night he left us way too early”
“He was such a polite lad; it didn’t make sense when he left without
saying goodbye”
“He was the joker. The one who made everyone on-site cry with laughter and then one morning, we just cried”
All of the campaign resources are available to download free of charge from the charity’s website so that everyone can get involved with helping inside the hard hat. There are a variety of poster sizes to choose from and companies can add their logo to show they are proudly supporting the campaign.
For those companies that want to ‘go large’ with their support, artwork suitable for hoardings and site buildings can also be provided free of charge.
The Help Inside the Hard Hat campaign was created by London agency And Rising who stepped forward to support the charity after hearing about mental health issues in the industry. Darius Rodrigues, Creative at And Rising said, “We were staggered by the statistic that every single working day, a construction worker takes their own life and this really pulled at the team’s heart strings. We wanted to do everything that we could, to not only help the Lighthouse Club raise awareness and address the enormity of the issue, but also to showcase all the fantastic work that is being done by the charity to support construction workers in crisis.”
The campaign is also being supported by the Considerate Constructor’s Scheme who are despatching free posters to all registered sites and also including free posters with all of the charity’s Construction Industry Helpline Packs.
Bill Hill said, “We want to deliver a message of hope and reassure our construction community that ‘we’ve got their back’ and that we are working tirelessly to ensure that no construction worker or their family is alone in a crisis. We really want the industry to get behind this campaign so that our workforce knows about all of the resources we have available to help inside the hard hat.
If construction workers don’t know we are here then we can’t help them. This is all about removing the stigma of talking openly about emotional wellbeing and encouraging people to start a conversation by checking that their work mates are OK. This one simple action could make all the difference to someone and could eeven save a life.
We also want to say a huge thank you to the fantastic team at And Rising who worked so hard to pull this campaign together for us, we would not have been able to achieve this without their help. A big thank you also goes out to the team at CCS who are helping us get this important message out to construction sites.”
Bill Hill added ”For the first time ever we’re also encouraging the industry to share our messaging, not just within the boundaries of a site but on external hoardings too, Covid-19 has brought the mental health agenda to the fore and so the timing is right to share our important message with a wider audience and create a sense of community with the general public; the same public that uses the schools, hospitals, roads etc that our construction workforce work hard to deliver in often very difficult circumstances.
The charity provides a 24/7 Construction Industry Helpline which provides a range of free and confidential wellbeing support services and this is complemented by their free Construction Industry Helpline App which offers expert guidance on a huge variety of wellbeing issues. They also offer a variety of free construction focussed training ranging from hour long interactive wellbeing sessions through to the MHFA England approved Mental Health First Aider course.
Companies can get involved by downloading their free posters and displaying them both within their sites and offices and also on site hoarding to make a really big impact. The charity is then urging everyone to take photos of their posters in situ and post them on social media to raise as much awareness as possible.
For more information and to download free resources visit Help Inside the Hard Hat
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Denise Maguire Editor of Irish Construction Industry Magazine
