Shout works in partnership with a diverse range of organisations who work with male audiences to extend the reach of Shout and to help men start a conversation about their mental health.
We spoke to Sarah Bolton, Chief Operations Officer at the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity about how partnering with us supports the mental health of their clients, a large percentage of whom are men.
To date, trained Shout Volunteers have support more than 750 texters from the industry through almost 1,000 conversations.
Why did you partner with Mental Health Innovations?
The Lighthouse Charity is the only charity that provides emotional, physical and financial wellbeing support to the construction community and their families. A crucial element of our strategy is to provide a wide range of free and widely available proactive resources to support the industry.
We partnered with Mental Health Innovations to provide our clients with anonymous, confidential mental health support via Shout’s text message service. It provides support in line with our charity ethos of trying to improve mental health and reduce the number of suicides in the industry.
We felt that Shout would complement the services we provide as a proactive resource for those feeling uncomfortable speaking on the telephone or having difficulty finding a place and time to talk.
What challenges do your audience face?
Our target audience is anyone working in the construction industry or allied trades and their dependents. Often workers are away from home with no support system close to them so are isolated and vulnerable.
They have also been affected by the cost of living crisis in the UK, both in terms of the day to day impact on their personal finances, but also through the reduced amount of work and income available within the industry.
The reduction in income and increase in costs has put excessive financial pressure on construction workers, leading to increased debt and worsening mental health as they struggle to cope.
What was it about the Shout text support service that appealed to you for your audience?
Shout works for our audience because it’s a confidential service that’s easy to access and that provides vital support for those in need. A worker can text while sitting in the break room with no chance of being overheard. They can discuss information that they may not want their colleagues to know about. The service also provides a discreet method of communication for those in vulnerable situations such as domestic violence, whatever time of the day or night.
Additionally the anonymised data that we receive from our audience’s usage of Shout helps us target our services to the areas with greatest need.
