Psych Health and Safety Podcast

In this episode we chat with Siusan MacKenzie, CEO of the Emergency Services Foundation in Melbourne, Australia. We discuss the current state of mental health within emergency services personnel. She describes the different programs being run by the Foundation to prevent psychological injury in emergency services through a focus on leadership, along with programs to assist frontline personnel in recognising warning signs and seeking help when required.

In this episode we chat with Dr Jacqui Wilmshurst, Chartered Applied Psychologist. Jacqui shares her experiences in working with neurodivergent clients and her own experiences as a neurodivergent woman. We discuss the benefits of a neurodiverse workforce, and Jacqui shares some tips on how employers can improve the experience of work for neurodivergent employees.

In this episode we chat with Dr Simon Albrecht, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of the Masters of Organisational Psychology program at Deakin University. We talk about the elements of good quality applied research and how it supports the scientist-practitioner approach, then get into more detail about employee engagement, its organisational drivers, and how it relates to wellbeing.

In this episode we chat with Dr Helen Kelly about burnout in teachers and school principals. Helen shares some of the statistics about burnout and attrition rates in teachers, the commonalities and differences in psychosocial hazard exposure between teachers and principals, and the reasons behind the ever-increasing workload for both groups. She offers suggestions for how schools can better manage psychosocial hazards, and shares examples of novel approaches that different schools have taken to improve the wellbeing of their teachers and principals. https://www.schoolmanagementplus.com/heads-governors-school-leadership-governance/teachers-are-not-to-blame-for-their-own-burnout/ https://drhelenkelly.com/

In this episode we chat with Dr Keaton Fletcher. As the 2022 SIOP Trend Champion for Employee Mental Health, Keaton explains the Top 10 Work Trends initiative, then shares the research he has been doing as Trend Champion to produce his first quarterly round-up for 2022. He gives us an overview of the main themes that have emerged this quarter, along with his observations about what is missing from current conversations about employee mental health. He shares insights from his work with a group of CEOs, along with some practical tips for building a strong business case for upstream employee mental health interventions. https://www.siop.org/Business-Resources/Top-10-Work-Trends

In this episode we chat with Dr David Anthony, Co-Founder and CEO of Mantle Health. We chat about how his experiences working in male-dominated industries led him to co-found Mantle with a focus on men’s mental health. Dave shares his views on the current state of mental health provision for men, particularly within EAPs. We discuss whether the current approach to EAP use in organisations is an effective use of resources, and consider what a more effective model of support might look like. https://mantlehealth.com.au/

In this episode we chat with Mark Layson, NSW Ambulance Chaplain and Doctoral Candidate at Charles Sturt University. Mark defines moral injury for us, and explains how it relates to trauma response and how it is different from PTSD. We discuss the non-trauma related psychosocial issues that can contribute to moral injury in first responders, and Mark speaks to the application of systems theory in preventing moral injury.

The last time we spoke with Louise Hosking, she was President Elect of IOSH. Now that she is well into her presidency, we caught up with Louise again to chat about the themes and campaigns of her presidency so far. We explore how to encourage more women into the safety profession, and how the safety profession can maintain the momentum and reputation it has achieved throughout the pandemic as a business-critical function. We discuss the intersection of sustainability and psych health and safety, and how the OHS profession can help organisations to meet their sustainability goals in relation to their employees. https://iosh.com/resources-and-research/our-resources/sustainability/catch-the-wave/