MATES in Construction Workplace Suicide Prevention Program

Elevated rates of suicide among construction workers compared to the general working male population have been identified in various countries around the world, including in Finland, the USA, Korea, Denmark, Canada, the UK and Australia, making this group a critical priority for prevention.

MATES in Construction (MATES) is an industry-based, workplace-focused, multi-component suicide prevention program for construction workers. The program was jointly created by labour and building industry employers under the Building Employees Redundancy Trust (BERT); MATES continues to be directed by a joint labour-management board. MATES is consistent with the Australian National Suicide Prevention Strategy (Living is for Everyone, or LIFE), and Mrazek and Haggerty’s spectrum of prevention and intervention for reducing the risk of mental disorders.

Four key elements of the program include General Awareness Training (GAT) for all workers (universal intervention), and on-site trained volunteer ‘Connectors’ to whom workers can turn to ‘connect them to help’ (selective intervention). The program also includes ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training)-trained roving Field Workers who assist workers in need of help, look after Connectors, recruit new sites, and conduct GAT training.

For this report the authors were commissioned by MATES National Office in March of 2019 to:

1. Review existing documentation on MATES program, which included material on MATES program logic and background, including latest documents on program logic from 2018 as well as notes from 2017 program logic workshop run by Shann;
2. LaMontagne made a Brisbane site visit to experience MATES firsthand and gain better familiarity with how the program works
3. Develop the MATES program logic model with related key activities and variables grouped, and the relationships between grouped variables articulated
4. Provide a short narrative explanation of the map