TRIGGER WARNING - This podcast contains information about mental health topics including suicide which may be upsetting to some people.

In this episode of Trades, Tools & Talks, we talk mental health with MATES in Construction.

MATES is a non-profit that aims to reduce the rate of suicide in the construction industry by raising awareness of mental health issues, breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health and providing support to those in need.

Read more about MATES here.

Welcome to Trades, tools and Talks, a podcast powered by Simpro.

I'm your host, Karlie Huckels today we are talking mental health in the

trades with mates in construction

by breaking down these walls of stigma that we built up, it's

hard breaking concretes hard too.

But by doing so, we can have great outcomes for our workplace organization.

/ Karlie: A note, the following

to mental health, including depression, anxiety, and suicide.

While the information provided is intended to be helpful, it is not a substitute for

professional medical advice or treatment.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health

issues, please seek help from a qualified healthcare professional.

Additionally, some listeners may find the content discussed in this

podcast triggering or upsetting listener discretion is advised./

And remember, even if you think this is something you can handle, you

don't have to finish this episode and you can stop at any time.

Take care of yourself first.

Now, let's get into it.

Hey everyone.

My name is James Edward Rapley Sendall, and I'm a field officer at MATES in

Construction in Aotearoa – New Zealand.

I look after the central Auckland region.

I'm here today talk about our program, who we are and what we do.

How did you get started with the organization?

I've been around almost coming up to two years with MATES in Construction.

Probably thinking, now looking back, it seems like it's

been almost double the time.

In terms of how fast we've grown and how much has happened,

but I started July, 2021.

Before that, I worked, , in trade sales for a company called Hilti, which is a

incredibly amazing company we worked for.

They really got my kind of start into the industry, worked within

customer services on the phones.

And then worked my way into a customer service representative in a Hilti

store, which was absolutely fantastic.

So I was not only able to have a hands-on experience with the tools and

the fastest and the industry items that we were delivering to our partners,

but also be able to talk to the people who were actually using this equipment.

And I quite quickly found myself, as you can already tell.

I talk really fast.

I was quite a quiet person before being in that role, and it really

opened me up because, you know, this industry itself, construction, is an

absolutely fantastic industry full of warm, honest, beautiful characters.

And I found myself doing a lot more talking than I was doing actually

providing solutions that were Hilti based.

But that was just the nature of, of myself.

I'm a, I'm a person that loves to know.

What they do, not only what jobs they were working on, but also, you know,

what did you do on the weekend on, you know, what is your family like?

What relationships, what interests do you have outside of work?

So when the opportunity came up once my MATES had started up in 2019, I'd

always looked towards it as being, you know, maybe where I would end up or

where I would be working with them.

So now looking at it two years later, man, It's it really is an amazing place to be.

And this issue itself, the suicide prevention, mental health awareness

is very close to home for me.

I lost my older brother when I was 12 years old to suicide, and

it was something that I never felt comfortable to talk about.

Not only.

To my friends or family, even my immediate partner, but even

to, to others, to newcomers.

And it was something that I, I really struggled with.

And through joining MATES and being around other very, very strong leaders

and deliverers of the program at the time, I was actually able myself to

grow as a person, to be able to open up around that experience and realize that

I was still grieving 15 years later on.

And to be able to open up and talk about Ben's journey through.

Two suicide through hit the struggles he was going through at the time,

and also my struggles again.

I was not only impacted by Ben's loss in 2006, but I was also

impacted myself in 2014 when I made an attempt on my own life.

And again, I was very shy.

I was never confident or able to open up about that experience due to that

stigma that had been built up over time, especially as a, you know, as, as a young

male or very much taught growing up in the early two thousands, if I was to open

up and to talk about my feelings or to show any sort of I guess vulnerability,

that, that was not ideal, that was not encouraged, I would week to do so.

And the word that was used when I was growing up is you'd be able to

emo That was the word I was given.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And.

And I was definitely an emo kid.

Not only because I had those experiences dealing with what I was dealing

with, also had the straightened fringes, war two belts, you know?

You know.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Love to know that you're in there too, Karlie.

Yeah, I'm in there too.

Oh, awesome.

It's just not something to be, I always shut that out.

I, it's not something to be I guess ashamed of, I, you know, that's a

phase that I went through at the time.

I thought that was not a phase.

That was who I am, and it was who I was.

The music stays, but you know,

Oh, most definitely..

I was right there with you.

I was an outcast as well.

This topic is near and dear to me.

It's impacted my family as well.

I've had a couple different family members and a couple different friends.

I think everybody who has this topic near and dear to them has somebody you know.

I'm really glad that I get to talk to you today.

And, really we wanna dive into it because a lot of our clientele is in

construction and they are in those like commercial hvac, commercial

trade, trade this, trade that.

And, those big roles, it's hard to talk about mental health.

Oh, true.

We as, as a field officer, as in our day-to-day job, a lot of it is sharing

our stories and what our experiences and encouraging others to same.

As you said, or especially around suicide.

When we start any of our trainings, whenever we put our hands up

and say, has anyone in this room been impacted by suicide?

Most often half of that room puts their hand up.

That's why I often start by sharing my story and where I come from, you

know, and where my journey is with this issue, because as you've exactly

put it, I think most people within our lives have been impacted by this issue.

So simply by sharing where I'm at, sharing where my story is and where my journey

is, encourage others to do the same.

But I guess where my pitch isn't for that, where I see the value of MATES being

is not only bringing out that awareness point of putting, you know, really shining

a light onto an issue that has really.

It's still even now been quite swept under the rug, not only in in

Aotearoa, within New Zealand, within I think the industry specifically,

but globally it's not an issue that is discussed very, very frequently.

So where I see the value first and foremost, is in that awareness piece

that we are generating, trying to shine that light on towards that issue, but

also to develop, you know, capacity.

And to develop, you know, strength of a framework within every business, with

every, any organization, with every site, with every trade or every partner that

we have within in MATES, to not only go up there and shine that light and talk

about that awareness and make that a proud piece of how every company that we

deal with does, but also be able to give that organization, that partner, whoever

we deal with, the tools to be able to deal with situations when someone may.

Potentially be having suicidal thoughts, maybe just dealing with the stress, maybe

with dealing with the many life or work events that come up with an everyday life.

I give them the tools to be able to be a suicide safe workplace.

And I guess that is my elevated pitch in away is looking at our partner list and I

look at the companies that are up there.

When I started, we only had one page partners.

There was probably about 70 at the time, but now we're sitting about 171 partners.

Amazing.

Which is.

Oh, exactly.

It's, that's why I say it's, it feels like I've been here a lot longer because

of the growth of the company over time.

And that growth, I think is, I mean that's indicative of not only the success

of our program, but also the amount of companies and organizations, wherever

they be within our industries and pro included, who have put their hand up

and notice that change that needs to be made and how that framework needs

to be utilized into their business.

So it shows not only.

Is there a problem?

We can do something about it and we can move forward to create those

workplaces where both help-seeking and help offering behaviors are encouraged.

We're breaking down those walls of stigma slowly, and when I've always put up that

partner list, I'm very proud to do so.

And that's, I think, a show and a sign.

The achievement in the progress have made so far.

Still a lot of progress to be made though.

We'll keep moving forward.

There's always more growth.

There's always more growth that can be done, especially in areas

that are so needed like this.

So what is MATES in Construction?

It's a big question.

I can just break it down a little bit.

So, we are an independent construction industry charity initially started

in 2008 over the ditch in Australia.

Now this was done to address the high levels of suicide that were found with

present within the construction industry, specifically in Queensland at the time.

However, fair few years have gone by since 2008, and over that time

the program has grown prolifically.

I think if I'm getting my statistics, statistics correctly, sitting at

last year, over 200,000 people had been inducted into the training.

The program is available in five different states within Australia.

We not only have MATES in Construction available within Australia, there's

also various offshoots of the program too, and as developed out into other

industries, you've not only got MATES and construction, we've also have

MATES and energy within the industry.

Industry, but also MATES in mining as well.

Absolutely.

Huge and such a proud achievement for MATES over in Australia

to have that service available to the mining industry being.

A very similar one to construction in terms of, you know,

industry specific pressures.

But also a very proud one that we also shout out as the development of

MATES in sport, which is a very, I think, you know, a very key industry

to, to many of our countries.

Wherever you live, there is a, you know, a sporting industry and.

There is a lot of stress present and it's very key that we acknowledge that.

So, however, I am talking about Australia and in New Zealand we only

started up a fair few years ago in 2019, so I joined just before the

first kind of covid, lockdown and nz.

But even then, I could see this very similar trend of

that demand being present.

And companies and partnerships wanting to start up to acknowledge

those levels and those numbers that are present within the industry

and to, to that similar reasoning.

We have grown quite prolifically, as I mentioned previously, that

time that even I've been present.

Our growth and partnerships are absolutely massive.

But what those partnerships also do represent is the implementation of our

program, and that is our service offering.

So most, most usually how we are interacting with or how people find

out about MATES is through our general awareness training, and that's our

sort of first level of training.

Where we are building awareness.

Which, as I said, probably one of our most important steps and why

people most often interact with us.

It is a 45 to 60 minute presentation usually delivered by PowerPoint

in person, always just due to the safety nature of the conversation.

And this is can be done onsite in an office, in a workplace.

And that was where we sort of started our, you know, our big journey.

That's how most of a lot of people knew about us, especially here

in Tamaki, Makoto, and Auckland.

As we, they, people would see us out on a big commercial site or within,

you know, residential environments, delivering that general awareness

training to site workers, to employees with our particular and our screen

and our orange and blue right on site.

That's a kind of a big key point of difference between us and many

other organizations where the only organization, to my knowledge, In

the mental health arena that is boots on the ground, we'll go to that

site, deliver that general awareness training if there are fewer numbers.

In 15, we'll also run what's called a MATES awareness training.

A shorter, sharper, about 15 to 20 minute spoken word presentation, which

is done so to target that residential environment where may only have four

to eight people on site of that time.

But from there once that awareness is developed, a little bit more of alertness

is around in terms of suicide that guess stress and then mentally stress

that can happen within an environment, especially within construction.

We then aim to install what we call our connectors.

That's the second stage of our program or our accreditation process as to install

as many of these connectors as we can.

One of our field officers has a great metaphor this for

this, which is fire alarms.

Because a fire alarm doesn't prevent a fire necessarily.

But it can detect if a fire is happening.

And that's a bit what our connectors are like.

They're not solvers.

That's a great metaphor.

I like that a lot.

Yeah.

It's that's fantastic.

And it's such a great example of what a connector is, and connectors are offered

the chance to become a connector off the back of that general awareness training.

They're given the chance to volunteer to become a connector.

And that is a four hour training usually done you.

Usually done, hopefully within say a port com or an office or a space

that you can have that four hours.

And it is where I see the true value of our program because by

installing those fire alarms, I like to say champions or lighthouses.

That's a metaphor I like to use.

It's a lighthouse.

That is lighthouse.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And they're usually people who already have that empathetic heart may have

either been impacted themselves or have a history of being that

person that others have gone to.

But by going through that connector training, they will now have the

confidence and the framework of conversation to enter into an engagement

with someone who may potentially be having suicidal thoughts or just

potentially be struggling at that moment.

By, by utilizing that connector Safe Talk framework, they can have the confidence

not to freeze, not to potentially miss the invitations of suicide or invitations that

someone may be struggling or even dismiss.

That is just behavior that that person usually displays or even

simply avoid it because it's not their job or they have too much going on.

They have the confidence to go into that situation.

Be clear, direct and honest.

Find out where that person is at, at that time.

From there with as many of those we can have, we usually aim from

a ratio of about one connected per 20 employees on site or workplace.

This is due to a statistic from the World Health Organization that dictates

that one in 20 may have suicidal thoughts over a two week period.

So it aligns.

I always, it kind of correlates with that statistic, which is quite

good for us because, It's easily 20 or more people on any given

site that we are interacting with.

So if you have at least one connector, it can be that lighthouse searching for those

ships, potentially struggling in the surf.

Then it can have those who are a bit, who are a bit more alert, who can

detect triage, and find the severity of where that person is sitting.

Even just have a brief conversation, a download.

Connect that person to a support, whatever that might be from there.

And let's get the final stage of our program to create

a suicide safer workplace.

Is installing at least one assisted trained person per

company or site that we work with?

We usually say a regionally available person because if you, you know, if, if

you only have one person for a company and that person's sick or they're on

leave, they just need to be available.

Now assistant, I'm actually wearing the badge here today.

It's a little blue one.

And it stands for Applied Suicide Intervention and Skills Training.

And it is for those crisis situations where someone on site or in a workplace

may be in a crisis, they may be on that metaphorical bridge, they may be

struggling, they may have devised or even planned an attempt on their life.

And that as a strengthed person has that confidence first and foremost

in themselves, and a framework to lean upon to engage with that person

and just to keep them safe for now.

Keep them safe in that moment of crisis and to be able to connect

them to a support, a service, whatever that person is potentially

struggling with at that moment.

Just to keep them safe, get them back to where they need to be.

I notice none of these steps are solving, they're not trying to fix what that

person is going through or Connector is simply connecting that person to help.

Whether that be an assist, whether it be us here at MATES, whether it be counseling

and employee assistance program.

It is all about creating a pathway to help.

Through awareness, through alertness, and then through having a couple

of individuals, few who can able, who can be able to intervene in

a moment of crisis, creating that framework that organization can lean

upon installing that wherever we go.

That's sort of what we call our accreditation framework.

And by a site or workplace achieving this, they've done the hard money as we see, and

Arturo, they have created that framework.

They can lean upon it and maintain it.

To be able to take that control of themselves and be proud of it, to

empower their workplace to be safer.

So in a funny way, what I and my field officers are aiming to do is slowly work

ourselves out of a job, is to create an industry so safe and workplace is so

safe that we can just turn up every month and just have a chat with everybody and

see what's going on and just be engaged with that partner with that organization

to make sure that everything's going along be a part of what they do, and

that's where we see true success.

In terms of our program and our service offering.

I hope that explains a bit.

That was an amazing explanation.

So you gave me a little bit of a backstory on how things got started and

now what do you guys see moving forward?

Because you've had that massive growth over the last few years, and

I'm assuming, I hate to say it, but Covid was probably a part of that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's it was a dynamic time and I'm about the image in Covid.

Cause as I said, when I started, it was off the bat or just before the

second set of lockdowns here on nz.

And that was a really funny, that was really interesting space for

me to start working with MATES.

Because I thought I was gonna start, within my first six months, I would be out

on the road, I would be traveling, I'd be delivering the presentations and whatnot.

And quite quickly we went in lockdown and that was.

Pretty much the case for about four months, and I had to learn quite

quickly how to interact and how to kind of get my call cycle together,

how to find my contacts and, and touch base with people and develop

relationships in a virtual environment.

So I'm quite used to interacting like this because we developed quite quickly

a service offering for for the virtual space, which we called a virtual toolbox.

And we tried to deliver as many of those as we could to our partners and to our

sites so that we could still interact.

You know, with those who, who may potentially, you know, be struggling

or, you know, may potentially be isolated within that environment.

And coming off the back in the lockdowns as everything started to open up, there

was a significant amount of growth simply because we could get back out on sites.

It, for a while, it was still hard for us to enter two sites.

There was a lot of protocols and whatnot, but those slowly opened up

and, and growth was very, very evident.

As you did mention, the growth has been, you know, substantial over time and I

think for us in MATES as personally, I can't speak to our, to our leader

senior management's leadership goals, but I know for myself and within

our roles within here in Auckland, we saw growth very substantially.

Over the last year we were simply a one city based organization and over this

past year we have grown into a national.

Our company available in all the main centers of Aotearoa, so not only

Auckland, but also we have two field offices in Wellington, our capital city.

And then also now, I think we're, if I'm getting this correct, we've got five

offices based in Christchurch, which is the largest city and now South Island, and

also two field offices based in Dunedin.

So when I started there was only about six of us, and now we're about 18.

So with that growth, it is, it's awesome to see, but with that growth

comes a level of responsibility.

So now more than ever I know for my team, we're making sure to just double

down and look after as much as we can.

Our foundation partners, and they're our, you know, our, our top tier one

partnerships, they're the ones who essentially give us the ability to

have a field officer dedicated to them.

And now more than ever, I'm encouraging our team and my team leader's

encouraging us to make sure that we are wrapping ourselves around those

organizations, building ourselves as much as we can into that project, into

that company, wherever that may be, to make sure that they're looked after.

Because we don't want to let our growth and you know, run so fast in

our journey to establish ourselves to make sure that we forget about

anything or leave any stone unturned.

We need to make sure our.

Processes and systems are locked in to make sure that, that that

growth doesn't impede future growth.

It's as always said, we don't wanna run too fast, that we fall

over and it's, that's very key.

We've had such big growth, but it's also about being able, being able

to slow down, being able to deliver that framework and step away and

be here if you need, so to speak.

How can people get involved with MATES?

Yeah.

If so, if you're here, within Aotearoa, we've quite easily contactable in

those main centers, as I mentioned.

So within Auckland it's pretty easy to get in contact with us, even if you're

wondering where's that first start point, our hundred line, that's the

easiest way to get in touch with us.

Oh 801 3 15.

We also have an office email address, info line, which info @MATES dot net dot NZ.

So a simple inquirer of, Hey, I've heard about this training, or, Hey, I did some

training on a project and I'd like to.

Have this done within my company or within my group, simply touch base with us there.

Because we are territory based, that simply will be flipped and be directed

to the person who looks after that, that center, that territory, wherever

they may be, so that you can have a localized approach and have a person

to develop that relationship with.

And even any inquiries around our statistics, around progress,

around any questions, queries, we're happy to answer them.

We've got nothing to hide in terms of where we stand and what we do.

So we're happy to have a conversation wherever it is.

So, First of that oh hundred number triple 1 3 15.

And secondly, info MATES net nz, which will go into our, our general

inquiries, our office email, and then be directed to the appropriate person.

And then I think the last question that I'm gonna have for

you is how would you encourage people to check in on their MATES?

I.

Yeah.

Wow.

I mean, that is, that's a good one.

It's a, it's a good, it's a good segue into bit bits of our program,

something we discussed within the general awareness training.

And how I would encourage is first of all to, I mean, it, it's, it's a quite

a big ask to look out for everybody.

I don't think that's, it's gonna be achievable for me to ask that to everyone

within this world or within this industry.

But I think it's, what I often talk about is a lot, especially

within our work lives, we're around the people we work with.

Often, more times than not, more than our own family, more than our own friends.

So I'd feel safe to say, I'd guarantee that anyone would notice

when the members of their immediate team, when their personality will

start to change, especially when stressful times start to stack up.

When events of life, such as maybe financial stress, starting to get a

bit much, maybe pending legal issues, maybe there's a lot going on right now

at home, potentially family issues, a lot of these stresses start to stack up.

Someone's behavior will start to slowly change over time, not after one bad day,

but when one bad day turns into seven or 14, I often guarantee that we'll notice

within our own teams when a particular person's personality will start to change.

And that's what we call a MATES an invitation when someone's personality

starts to become out of character, maybe they're someone who's usually

quite calm now, they're quite angry, they're shouting, they're getting brief.

Or they're usually quite talkative like myself, like

I'm one of those checky people.

I don't ever stop, as you can tell, I'll just keep going for an hour if you let me.

But for me thank you for me.

I stop, shut down.

I don't reply to any messages, calls, text, nothing.

No one can contact me at all.

I behave myself up.

I can't even look it on the eye when I'm speaking to them.

I absolutely shy myself away from the world.

That now that change in behavior will be evident, and that's why we refer to

it as an invitation, not a warning sign.

We stay clear away from that phrase because I mean, we could sit here

for the next half hour and lay and just list examples of warning signs.

I can see many from where I'm sitting right now.

Outside sight, there's orange traffic cones telling us to

stay away from that location.

There's an exclusion zone set up to my left telling me that

I can't go into that area.

There's all things designed to stop us.

The barriers to entry.

Now, why we don't use that phrase is that some people, that's what those warning

signs are when someone is struggling and that behavior starts to change either

through that physical invitation that we might notice, or even a verbal invitation

that someone might say in conversation to us or in pass them, they could speak

of feeling lonely, speak of feeling hopeless, speak of feeling like a burden.

Many things.

Or even if that is just a gut feeling that we notice when that individual

in our team or our circle walks into our space and can't read their

minds, but we know something inside is telling us, eh, something's

not right with that person today.

All those invitations are displays to that person is potentially struggling.

They're putting their hand up and showing us unconsciously, even willingly,

without realizing it that they could.

Be struggling.

They might be dealing with a lot.

And for us, when we notice that invitation, even though it may be hard

or we encourage MATES just to take even 10 seconds just to send to yourself.

It's not an easy thing to do, but just to check in, say, Hey, I've noticed that.

And usually you're never stressed by anything.

You're never worried by anything in life.

In last week, man, you've been.

Absolutely furious.

You've been desperate.

You've been rushing back and forth from it.

Are you okay?

Because even if that person is okay, simply just one bad day that's stacked up.

If that person is struggling and you have noticed, doing so by

checking in can alleviate show to that person that you've noticed.

They may have been dealing with those stresses for a very, very

long time, and no one has noticed.

You have this conversation coming from a place of care.

And even if you have to ask that question multiple times, even on the

fourth or fifth time, that person might actually come back to you and say,

Hey, I've actually, I'm not alright.

I'm not okay.

I'm doing so open to the floor of conversation.

It's not anything that, there's nothing that can be lost from that conversation.

There's only growth between those two people, that relationship that

is built and growing forward, if that person does need support.

They can find that support and open that conversation and be honest,

rather than hiding those issues away, putting them under the rug,

putting 'em behind closed doors and internalizing them and stacking them up.

Cuz we are very honest and especially in our industry, construction, we

talk a lot about health and safety.

Wear are the right gear.

You know, we wear our boots, wear, wear our hat, we wear our gloves.

We're very, very firm on that.

But our mental health directly informs our physical health.

We're leasing such importance on wearing the right gear.

We must be making sure we're looking after ourselves as well mentally, cuz

those outcomes are very, very correlative.

So my, my advice is, it's not always easy, but if you are the person that

has noticed, if you have noticed any of those invitations, it's probably likely

that you're the person that should ask.

And if you don't feel comfortable, it's somebody else up.

Say, Hey, can you, can you talk to Brian?

I've noticed he's he's acting a little bit frantic today.

In doing so, you're creating a community and creating that framework to lean upon.

So multiple people were involved, not just yourself trying to burden

the responsibility, taking on on that pressure and what we aim to do,

especially our MATES, not to fix anything.

Not to solve anything, but just to make sure anyone who is

potentially struggling is looked after and they support available.

It would be a lot easier if we could, I could just go, oh

yeah, you just ring this number.

You just, you, you just, I'll just give you this card and you call this card.

It would be a lot easier, but easy.

These problems are not easier.

What we're trying to do here, what we're trying to reopen this

conversation, it's not an easy thing too.

It was not easy to me open up about Ben or my experience when when I first started

Max, but sometimes the hardest things in life are the ones that are most rewarding.

And by breaking down these walls of stigma that we built up, it's

hard breaking concretes hard too.

But by doing so, we can have great outcomes.

We have more positive and suicide safe outcomes for our workplace organization.

Say, that's why I go so in depth.

Cause I know for me, I struggled to do that for so long.

Even though I had that experience, I knew what being in that space felt like.

I still struggled and froze when I was asked that question to others.

But now I'm, I'm confident to do so cuz I've actually had others do it to me.

Even within this job.

Knowing what that feels like and knowing what that empowerment is, or even that

physical feeling when I've walked out of those conversations and knowing that I

can even just have one of those to someone else and I walk forward taller, stronger.

So I hope everyone can feel that same.

I wish that for everyone.

Sorry.

It gets me gone.

Gets me gone.

No, it's ok.

It's, it's a passionate topic.

It's not just, it's not just something you can casually talk, well, we wanna make

it something you can casually talk about, but right now it's, it's a passion project

and it's, it's something that people want to open the floor about and, you know,

this is why we have these conversations.

You know, you, you literally do it for a living here.

I'm telling you, you know?

No, you hit the nail right on the headers.

We wanna informalize this, this, these sort of discussions.

And by doing so, it can be just as knowledgeable as accidents on the road.

Which is something that, especially in Aotearoa, we talk a lot about.

You know, the roll toll is something that's heavily

discussed and it's very informal.

We can say if someone has had a bit too many too much to drink, we say, Hey, let's

take that person's keys away from them.

Or, Hey, or You shouldn't drive today.

But if someone's struggling quite easy, and it has happened a lot

in the past, is easy for someone to walk past that individual.

Which seems UNC correlative in my mind.

It makes no sense to walk past somebody who's, you know, potentially

about to put themselves in an unsafe environment physically.

Why would we do so mentally?

But even by having an informal discussion can achieve so much more informal

formalizing, even medicalizing or izing, pathologizing, whatever word

you'd like to use, that this issue of suicide, it is, it is preventable.

We can do something.

So let's, you know, let's talk about, let's get the conversations started.

We're all went through stuff.

We the same things.

I guarantee it.

And even us at the start talking about now being emo, going through

that phase, I know that looks like there's many people that too.

So let's talk about it.

We weren't going through stuff.

We've all gotta wait to carry, so let's carry that weight together.

Let's do it together and be stronger.

I love that.

Okay, so last question that I have really is, is there anything

that I'm not asking that you think should be mentioned to the audience?

Just at the, at the end of the day, wherever it is, even

if especially our service is not necessarily being available in the US

that, no one is alone in this issue.

I think we've touched upon it a few times.

No one's alone dealing with their struggles.

As I mentioned before, everyone's got their weight to carry.

Everyone has things that they go through within life.

If life was easier, then again, we wouldn't be having a discussion.

I wouldn't have necessarily had this job.

Suicide is preventive of those success stories that we might have of

preventions, of suicide or people who have been impacted and survived say

for myself and, and for many others who are carrying those experiences.

Ones that are not necessarily discussed about those success stories.

When things go right, when the conversations I had, they are

not necessarily discussed, but they should be celebrating.

Should be able to share our stories.

And for those who are potentially struggling or even maybe listening to

this to let, just want to let you know that you are not alone in that journey.

Wherever you are, I hope that you can reach out to somebody, you

can have a discussion with what you're going through at that time.

That doesn't necessarily need to be professional help.

Doesn't necessarily need to be a counselor or a, you know, a psychologist,

psychiatrist, anything clinical.

That could just be someone that you trust within your circle to have a conversation.

Whoever that is, and I'm guarantee everyone has one person.

For me, it's family and it's my father.

That's who I reach out to.

I always do whenever things get tough, and about three weeks ago that did

happen to me I had that fleeting thought that entered my head and I reached out.

And I always encourage others to do the same, just to have a person that

you can go to even multiple that you can turn to when times get tough

and you can reach your hand up to.

I'm doing so you can share that load, share that weight that

you're carrying, and be able to walk forward taller and stronger.

Am I doing so?

We can.

It's a lot better.

Everyone has their struggles.

Everyone goes, through stuff, we should do it together.

Absolutely.

You wanna build that rapport with someone, you know, coming back to them, asking

them multiple times because the first time, you know, it's, harder for people

to respond to the first connection.

Like you don't usually just jump right in and be like, well, let

me tell you my entire life story.

Yeah,

yeah.

If I met somebody who said, Hey, have you potentially been

having thoughts of suicide?

They go, what?

How?

Why did you come to that?

No.

Why are we structured asking to develop that rapport, say

develop those relationships?

Cause that way we can be stronger by having those

relationships everywhere we go.

Then there's always a network.

Wherever we are within line, within organization, whatever workplace

we're at, that's what we're trying to do here at at MATES.

Trying to develop that community, trying to build that community within

our industry, because it's there in, in some capacities for what we do.

We stand on top of that.

We utilize those relationships that already exists to build on top of

that so we can achieve those outcomes.

That's what it's about.

There are communities everywhere we go, put this build on top of

those, make sure that we're safer, especially in regards to suicide.

James, thank you so much for talking with me today.

I really am looking forward to sharing this message with our audience.

Not a problem.

Thank you so much, Karlie, for having me on the opportunity to speak about our

journey here, in MATES in Construction.

If you'd like to know any more about us here at MATES in

Construction, we are online.

Can look at our website MATES.net.nz as well as on Instagram at

MATES in Construction nz.

If you'd like to hear more from myself, we also have a podcast

called Hey Bro, a podcast by MATES in Construction found on Spotify.

Thank you so much for your time.

Here goes and hope you have a wonderful day.

Thanks for listening to Trades Tools and Talks, the Simpro

podcast, helping you work smarter.

I'm Karlie Huckels.