Charity makes free mental health awareness artwork available to firms

THE Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity has launched a new campaign to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.

The help inside the hard hat initiative will seek to raise awareness of mental wellbeing issues within the construction industry and to also detail how those within the sector can reach out for help.

A series of thought provoking quotes on posters will be made available for free download to firms, with larger artwork also being made available free of charge to companies wishing to go big with their campaigning.

The featured quotes are:

“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.”

AKP Scotland is the first firm in the country to have its banners up, with them being visible at their project for Spire at Glasgow’s Skypark – with the help inside the hard hat campaign artwork to be on display until the development concludes later this year.

The campaign was created in collaboration with London-based agency And Rising, after they became aware of the mental health issues in the construction 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, CEO of the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity, 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.

”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.

Click here to download the free posters.