A Renovation Project – It's Time to Add Mental Health as a Safety Training Topic

Originally broadcast on April 20, 2023. Now available On Demand.

Summary

Workplace safety training is due for a renovation. While traditional training topics shouldn’t be thrown out on demo day, it is time to recognize that today’s workers are dealing with hazards that are not on a typical safety training agenda. The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows workplace fatalities caused by violence, intentional injuries and nonmedical drug use rose significantly compared to the previous year. Additionally, reports from a variety of sources indicate that there is an unprecedented number of young adults dealing with anxiety and depression. This should serve as a call to action for safety professionals – it’s time to tear down some walls and add mental health awareness as a safety training topic alongside machine guarding, lockout/tagout and fall prevention.   

If that makes you uncomfortable you are not alone. After all, mental health is personal, private and sensitive. It’s also potentially hazardous. And it’s even more hazardous to pretend it isn’t a concern. Safety training should prepare workers to recognize and respond to all known workplace hazards, mental health included.   

This webinar provides practical guidance for incorporating mental health awareness into your workplace safety training in an appropriate way that will help protect workers from the fastest growing hazard in today’s workplace.  Viewers of this webinar will be able to: 

• Describe the prevalence of mental health challenges among America’s workforce.  
• Recognize how mental health challenges, in the form of thoughts, emotions, behaviors, can have an impact on worker safety.  
• Effectively and appropriately address mental health as a workplace safety training topic.  
• Access beneficial resources designed to support efforts to train workers on mental health challenges. 

Speaker 

Holli Singleton is director of safety and health services, The Southeastern OSHA Training Institute Education Center at North Carolina State University. She provides strategic leadership and management of the services provided by a team of workplace safety experts and trainers.  

However, she began her career as a substance abuse and mental health professional providing direct client services and substance abuse training for clients, families and clinical staff at a substance abuse treatment center. After nine years, she accepted a job at a large healthcare system where she taught community health/wellness classes, led workplace safety training for staff, and served on the corporate safety committee.  

Her career journey has provided a unique view of the correlation between mental health and workplace safety and it is her desire to help safety professionals understand how to appropriately and effectively address this growing concern in their companies.