Mates in Mind wins award to fund vital research into mental health issues amongst self-employed
Mates in Mind are proud to announce that its proposal for a new research initiative designed to discover more about the mental health struggles of self-employed tradespeople and those working for smaller businesses in the construction industry has received the £25,000 Occupational Health Research Award for 2021.
Judges from B&CE’s Charitable Trust were impressed by their joint submission with the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), and supported by the HCLG, which proposes a four-step plan to learn more about the pressures on the mental health of the estimated one million ‘hard to reach’ people either working for themselves or for small and micro businesses within the construction and manual trades sector. The proposal follows concerns that the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will only exacerbate the pressures on those working within the industry, with risk of suicide within this sector already being higher than the national average.
The award will help Mates In Mind and IES investigate the extent of the problem within the targeted section of the industry, develop a questionnaire designed to gauge the levels of poor mental health, embark upon a qualitive research programme with selected workers and conclude with the publication of a report. The report will summarise both the extent of the issue within the target group and how it can be tackled. The report, once published, will be made available to the wider industry and it is also hoped that at least one support tool will be developed as a result.
The Health and Construction leadership group have supported this proposal and will be working alongside Mates in Mind on the project.
Those wanting to participate in the research, which is due to start in the coming months, can contact the team at support@matesinmind.org
Donations to support this important project are hugely welcomed – these can be made via
Or you can contact the team at support@matesinmind.org and we can arrange a payment method that best works for you. If you do make a donation please mark it as MinM Research Award.
