VIDEO PODCAST | Time to talk – mental health in construction
The reasons for disproportionately high levels of suicide among construction workers and what can be done to help them were the topics of discussion on this episode of the Place North podcast.
Tom Dickinson, managing director of furniture solutions firm OSI and founder of motivational speaking platform Tom’s Talks, and Sam Reeve, senior project surveyor at BAM, joined Place North West deputy editor Dan Whelan to discuss the issue of men’s mental health in the construction industry and potential interventions.
Construction workers are three times more likely to die by suicide than those working in other industries, according to research by the Chartered Institute of Building. Dickinson and Reeve analysed why this might be, while offering up suggestions as to how to combat symptoms, eliminate unhealthy behaviours, and put an end to unnecessary deaths.
After his brother Liam took his own life in 2015, Dickinson found himself in a dark place.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” he said of his brother’s death. “I was suicidal at one point. Luckily I managed to pull myself out of it.”
It was this experience that prompted him to start his motivational speaking business Tom’s Talks, which sees him go into schools and workplaces to share his experiences and speak directly to people who may be feeling the same.
The hope is that by speaking openly about what he has been through, and how he came out the other side, he will help others to do the same.
To learn more about Tom’s Talks go to toms-talks.co.uk and to find out more about OSI, go to osifurniture.co.uk or, better yet, go and see the team at Education Estates taking place in Manchester on 14 and 15 October.
