You just listened to the WhyWork episode.
Now listen to the WhyNOT wisdom shot.
So Alan, what's happening?
So we're talking a lot about psychological first aid
or mental health first aid.
Why?
Understandably, people are concerned about the mental health
of the workforce and how they can best help them.
And there are new standards and codes of practice
about psychological and psychosocial health.
There is a new code that has been published now
about psychosocial hazards, which is a related
but different topic to mental health first aid.
And mental health first aid is happening in the workplace
right now, but why not?
First aid is good.
In any organization, you need to have first aid
to deal with situations where people have been hurt.
So physical first aid is about physical injuries.
Mental health first aid is about health issues,
just as you expect people who are exercising physical first aid
that they should have some sort of training, a skill.
I think the same is true for psychological health.
So if someone is engaged in psychological first aid,
then they should have some training and some skill.
So what's the verdict?
Well, I think there's still a lot of debate about it,
not just in Australia, but overseas,
about whether or not it's effective
and personally, I find it difficult
when we're using the expression first aid.
If we're talking about mental health first aid,
I'd like to see the conversation go the same way
where you're just stabilizing the person's condition
until they can get more professional help.
And we know that trained psychiatrists and psychologists
can achieve excellent outcomes
in the area of psychological health.
I'd prefer us pushing us to those qualified professionals.
So what we're seeing to be finding is that there's general awareness
but not necessarily change in the risk landscape,
if only relying on first aid.
I think there's an enormous desire to be helpful
and sometimes we can overstep what we can do
and we try to do things that we really should be allowing
people with a greater degree of training to do.