Trigger Warning: Suicide
If just one person calls 13 11 14 after seeing an AMCAP maintenance kit, our ‘Seek Help - Find Hope’ campaign in partnership with Lifeline WA will be a success.
AMCAP Industrial works with businesses in the resource sector, sending out approximately 5000 maintenance service kits each month. As a member of this industry, we realised we had a responsibility and opportunity to do something for the community while carrying out our everyday services. That’s why we partnered with Lifeline WA - an essential service giving free, 24/7 support to Western Australians during the darkest moments of their lives.
190 people in the resource sector are lost every year to suicide. This sobering statistic gave us the idea to brand our packaging with the Lifeline message ‘Seek Help - Find Hope’ along with the 13 11 14 crisis support number. The campaign concept is simple - spread awareness of the support number and normalise help-seeking so Australians in our communities aren’t suffering alone.
AMCAP maintenance kits have significant visibility and multiple touch points throughout their journey from our warehouses to their final destination on-site - from our 200 staff, the freight and transport providers and their warehouses that they use, then from the back of trucks travelling to remote mine sites and the hundreds of employees at our customers’ sites. It’s our hope that consistent visibility of the Lifeline number and messaging will remind any one of those people along the way to reach out for help if they need to.
CEO of Lifeline WA Lorna MacGregor has endorsed this partnership as a unique way to reach a high-risk population. “We know through research that FIFO rosters and working in isolated areas away from family and friends can be immensely challenging,” she said.
“Men, in particular, are at the greatest risk of suicide but are also the least likely to seek help.”
Within Australia, men accounted for 72.5% of deaths by suicide, however, the majority of calls to Lifeline are made by women. This highlights a real disparity between the men that are suffering and those reaching out for help. It is our hope that through initiatives like this, seeking support will be normalised for men in our country because deaths by suicide are preventable.
Every year, 1 million Australians reach out to Lifeline for support - that’s a call every 30 seconds. The volunteers on the other end of those calls have taken more than 170 hours to become accredited crisis supporters to provide life-saving support to their community. Lifeline WA has 220 volunteers supporting our community whether they are in crisis, experiencing anxiety, depression, loneliness or abuse.
Many staff in the resource services work for long periods of time away from their families, with long work hours per shift. Missing family events, birthdays, holidays and even everyday activities can be incredibly difficult on mental health and relationships. AMCAP recognises the responsibility we have to support people working not only for us but for our customers in the industry.
Our company has the tagline - ‘Think inside the box’ - which relates to all of our parts packaged into one box for easy servicing on-site. But it’s also fitting here - to think inside the box and check in on your own mental health as well as those around you - your colleagues, family, friends, neighbours and even strangers. We don’t always know what is going on with those around us but encouraging others to seek help when they need it can save lives.
Lifeline’s 24/7 telephone crisis support service is available on 13 11 14 or via their website wa.lifeline.org.au
By AMCAP
