My name is Ian Hines and I have been in the construction industry, predominantly scaffolding, where I started as a laborer and worked my way up to an advanced level while also training in health and safety to Nebosh level.

I also qualified as a BACP therapist in 2008 and started my personal crusade to address the stigma within the construction industry that was stopping people mainly males from admitting that they needed help.
Mental health was and to a degree still is seen as a weakness, we are losing two people every day to suicide within the construction industry, which is someone’s father, son, uncle, or friend.

My experience of men approaching me as they knew that I had some training as a counsellor was increasing however they nearly all started the same way “I have a mate “.
What would happen was then a few weeks later I would be approached by the same person who had taken my advice and attended a support group or contacted a therapist sometimes via a company EAP saying that it was them that had the issue, but they had been too embarrassed to admit it.

I then trained as an MHFA mental health first aider with the view to being more accessible to the workforce and saw the difference it made as it was not as daunting speaking to a first aider than it was a therapist.

I then went on to train as an instructor with the commitment to train at least twenty people within my organization in mental health first aid, the feedback we received meant we actually trained over fifty that year and were recognized by MHFA themselves for the effort we had put in.
By the time I left the company after being there 23 years (only 4 years as an instructor) we had trained nearly three hundred mental health first aiders.
I was honored to receive the president’s award from NASC (National Access and Scaffolding Confederation) in 2021 for services to mental health within construction.

We then took the training out to our clients such as Balfour Beatty , Lendlease and Wilmot Dixon to name a couple , we did this training for free and even trained people within the community on their behalf in an effort to satisfy their social value KPIs , one such time was when we trained 16 youth workers in the east end of London allowing them to set up a mental health drop in clinic and helpline.

We also set up a helpline at Lyndon Scaffolding. However, I felt that I needed to be sure I was working ethically so went and trained with the Samaritans, I still do some work for them when life allows.
We have been fortunate to have been recognized many times within industry magazines and were also nominated for the 2023 construction news awards for service to social value and mental health.

Since leaving the company I have worked with the lighthouse charity delivering on-site talks about mental health and the support that is available.
I now feel it’s time to take the training to another level for myself by delivering the course on behalf of MHFA to all construction companies as I feel I have lived in there world and experienced the loneliness of working away , missing family and suffering from isolation which in turn effected my mental health.

I was lucky enough to be aware of where I could access support however many are not and continue to just battle on sometimes using problematic coping mechanisms such as alcohol and drugs which opens up a whole other set of problems with behavioral safety and lack of safety in general.
I feel that if we could educate our workforce about self-care , mental health , stress management we would be on the right path to eradicating the stigma that in truth is the biggest killer in our industry with over 6000 people taking their own lives in comparison to 1300 who die due to road traffic accidents surely by providing avenues of support we can make a difference.

There are many courses available within the MHFA course list that can be tailored to suit us as the construction industry, I am able to deliver them all including SFA suicide first aid and deliver them in a language that will be heard.
I pride myself on not delivering death by PowerPoint courses and encourage group participation helping the learner feel part of the process by relating the leaning objective to real life situations that we within the industry face on a daily basis.