MATES Apprentice Resilience Program is a targeted, strengths-focused intervention, based on the recommendations of the 2020 report by the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention and Griffith university.

The report highlighted an alarmingly high number of apprentices have experienced workplace bullying, which was correlated with a number of concerning findings.

27.3% of apprentices had experienced bullying vs 9.6% for the rest of the workforce.
20% described the bullying as severe.
30% reported thoughts of suicide in the last 12 months
Nearly 30% of apprentices had poor quality of life that may indicate depression, and
13% had high levels of metal distress indicating possible severe mental illness.

These figures were made worse by the finding that apprentices have low rates of mental health and suicide literacy.

Based on these findings, and the report recommendations, our resilience training program has been developed with a specific focus on:

resilience and self-care,
financial management,
alcohol and other drugs awareness,
suicide and mental health literacy,
workplace bullying, and
workplace rights.

The half day training program addresses skill development in these key risk areas and is designed to help apprentices develop resilience while building awareness, connecting to support, and promoting MATES mission of a healthier industry.

The program is offered at no cost to all construction industry apprentices, MATES caters the session and provides all required resources