Mental health
Mental health
Living and working in isolation, challenging financial and environmental factors and poor access to support services contribute to poor mental health.
The impact and consequence of mental health issues is borne not only on the farmer, but by family and friends as well. Preventing and managing the risk factors is an essential part of staying safe and productive.
SafeWork NSW has released the NSW workplace mental health capability benchmarking tool and Survey report, which includes baseline data specific to the agricultural sector based on their capability to create mentally healthy workplaces.
In November 2017, a summit of mental health experts will co-design the Mentally healthy workplaces in NSW strategy 2022 and Work program 2018-22.
SafeWork NSW will:
- work with other agencies and rural mental health networks to find practical ways to support preventive and educational mental health activities, with particular focus on remote and isolated agricultural communities
- undertake a further survey of agricultural businesses to establish a baseline for this sector
- implement relevant actions from the strategy, to create mentally healthy workplaces for agricultural communities.
We will know if we are on track if:
- agricultural businesses move from one level of the tool to the next.