Nonprofit launches mobile app to address industry mental health crisis

The ABC Cares Basis has created a cell app designed to handle the psychological well being challenges confronted by development staff.

The charitable arm of Related Builders and Contractors’ Florida East Coast chapter launched the app on Monday in a partnership with West Palm Seaside, Florida-based outpatient behavioral well being specialty group Hurt Discount Middle, per a launch shared with Development Dive.

The Miami-based ABC Cares Basis mentioned that the HIPAA-compliant app will present staff with immediate, confidential entry to psychological well being providers. Taking part development firms will show QR codes on their jobsites, which staff can scan to attach with licensed psychological well being suppliers for help. 

There’s a nominal price for firms enrolling in this system, mentioned Sonny Maken, COO of ABC Florida East Coast. The app is designed for particular person staff with insurance coverage, however ABC Cares has secured low charges for non-insured staff to make sure affordability of care, Maken mentioned.

Upon scanning, staff can schedule in-person appointments inside 48 hours. These appointments may embody remedy, case administration, psychiatric care and habit counseling.

The app is designed to handle the business’s psychological well being disaster. The suicide death rate for construction staff was 2.4 occasions greater than all industries (46.1 vs. 19.5 per 100,000 full time workers) in 2022, probably the most lately accessible set of information. There have been 5 occasions extra suicides in development than office fatalities that yr.

“These statistics are unacceptable,” Peter Dyga, CEO of ABC Cares Basis, mentioned within the launch. “This partnership is about motion — making psychological well being care extra accessible, which demonstrates our dedication to the protection and well-being of the people who construct our communities.”

Components that contribute to suicide threat in development embody strain to work shortly with few errors, a male-dominated workforce inhabitants that creates a “tough-guy” mentality, alcohol and drug use, poor entry to healthcare, job instability or uncertainty and excessive damage charges that result in continual ache.

The business has shone a light-weight on the difficulty in recent times, nonetheless. In October, CEOs from Bechtel, Fluor, Turner, North America’s Constructing Trades Unions, Kiewit, Clark, DPR, Skanska and Stanley Black & Decker united to type an advisory council to information an industrywide effort to scale back development’s excessive fee of suicide amongst staff.

That announcement got here after Bechtel pledged $7 million to the American Basis for Suicide Prevention in March, the largest-ever donation to the nonprofit on the time.