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Speaker 1: There were eighty suspected suicides in the construction industry last year.

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Speaker 1: That is a record high. And the Mates and Construction

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Speaker 1: Industry Group, who are a charity, they want to improve

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Speaker 1: well being and reduce that number. They have released some

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Speaker 1: new research this morning which is interesting. It found that

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Speaker 1: eighty five percent of workers reported positive mental well being.

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Speaker 1: That's ten percent more than the year previous. Doctor Lauren

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Speaker 1: donnan is with us this morning. She's from Mates and

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Speaker 1: Constructed and conducted this research. Thank you for being with us.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: Can I start what period of time is this new

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Speaker 1: data for? Because the industry is struggling at the moment,

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Speaker 1: so I was surprised to hear that there was an

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Speaker 1: uptick in positive feelings.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the particular piece of research you're referring to is

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Speaker 2: between August and November of last year.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so that might help explain some of that. What

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Speaker 1: are you putting this down to? This increase?

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Speaker 2: Think it's really important that we do research annually so

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Speaker 2: we can understand the trends year on year and also

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Speaker 2: understand what is working well and what's not going so well,

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Speaker 2: so we can see underneath that eighty five percent.

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Speaker 1: What does it look like and what is it telling you?

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Speaker 2: It's telling us that year on year, overall wellbeing seems

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Speaker 2: to be improving, but that there are key groups that

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Speaker 2: are needing extra support within our industry, and those groups

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Speaker 2: have higher distress and lower mental wellbeing. And those are

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Speaker 2: workers like al Dangatahi aged fifteen to twenty four, our

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Speaker 2: non binary and female workers. And interestingly, this year we

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Speaker 2: looked at workers at the disability illness or mental illness

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Speaker 2: and that was a group that really needed extra support,

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Speaker 2: and one in five workers told us that they had

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Speaker 2: a disability or illness. When you think about the sides

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Speaker 2: of that group, it's over two thousand workers. I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 2: quite a sign finding for us.

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Speaker 1: It is, it is very significant. What do you so?

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Speaker 1: Twenty twenty one there was seventy percent reported you know,

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Speaker 1: positive mental wellbeing. Twenty twenty two that was seventy five percent,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, eighty five percent. Is is it possible

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Speaker 1: that because we're talking more about it and the industry

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Speaker 1: is talking more about it, that's helping people to feel better?

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Speaker 2: One hundred percent. I think what we're seeing and what

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Speaker 2: our staff who are out on the ground every day

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Speaker 2: talking to workers. Is that shift in the culture on

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Speaker 2: sites and being able to talk about mental health, that

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Speaker 2: really early intervention stuff that we're doing where we get

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Speaker 2: in there and we make sure that work is still

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Speaker 2: comfortable having those courageous conversations, and I think that raised

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Speaker 2: awareness around mental wellbeing is really helping.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time. Really interesting research,

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Speaker 1: as I said, that's come out this morning. Doctor Lauren

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Speaker 1: Donnan with us from Mates and Construction. She's the research

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Speaker 1: manager there.

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