THE Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity has revealed details of its work in 2019, including a 56% rise in demand for charitable services through its 24/7 helpline.
The number of construction families requiring wellbeing and financial support rose to 2,616, with a total of £703,641 of charitable giving provided to support them.
To support a better mental health culture within the industry, a further £411,962 was spent on the charity’s education and training programme with a project managed on behalf of the CITB that provided training to 300 mental health first aid instructors, who in turn have trained over 3,000 mental health first aiders.
Just over £21,000 was invested in innovation, specifically on the Construction Industry Helpline App which provides information, advice and guidance on wellbeing issues. The charity said the app is also being developed to meet the needs of companies with major sites and joint venture projects who want to provide additional site-specific real-time information around issues such as health and safety briefings and site inductions.
Bill Hill, CEO of the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity said, “We are working tirelessly to ensure that our construction workers and their families have access to the help they need, Our helpline cards have now been distributed to almost 600,000 of our workforce and our app has been downloaded over 20,000 times.
“We will continue to deliver pro-active interventions to ensure that situations do not reach a life-critical stage and our mission is to ensure that no worker feels alone in a crisis. To support our helpline, we have recently introduced professional caseworkers who ensure that applicants receive all the possible support available to them, both from us and other organisations. This means that the charity is spending less per case whilst delivering a more holistic and higher quality service.”
