Trevor Steven, ex-Everton and England football player, is mental health ambassador for construction technology provider Causeway Technologies.

Following his talk at DCW 2023, Trevor provides an update on his work on a rare survey conducted among the UK’s construction site workers. 

Since writing my last guest blog for Digital Construction Week (DCW) towards the end of 2022, I’ve had another very rewarding year as Causeway Technologies’ dedicated mental health ambassador.  

It’s been a pleasure to have the opportunity to lead the ‘join the dots’ campaign, reinforcing the message that it’s okay not to be okay. The campaign has initially focused on research to better understand the causes of mental health problems today and the support required for site-based workers using new tools such as technology, apps and online support. 

Those who attended my session at DCW in May will have heard me talking about the survey I’ve been conducting on construction sites up and down the country.  

While most surveys in the sector tend to be completed by office-based employees, our approach has been to use the subject of football to kickstart conversations and get much more honest and open opinions from trades and site-based workers. Such personnel very rarely tend to complete questionnaires so it’s uncommon to gain insights as valuable as the ones we have been able to collate on site. 

We are increasingly seeing the importance of conversation around mental health in construction recognised at an industry level, and there are some encouraging signs that businesses are engaging with it. A recent example springs to mind, from episode 20 of Causeway’s Construction Talk podcast in which I heard our Chief Operating Officer Paul Devlin mention that he’d seen a sign while on site that read: ‘The single most important thing you’ll do today is go home to your family’. What a powerful message that sends. 

That said, the industry’s mental health crisis still shows little sign of abating so we cannot stop pushing forward on this issue. 

Shockingly, we are still losing on average two construction workers to suicide every working day, and studies have shown that male site workers are disproportionately affected by mental health issues. However, they are often deemed the most vulnerable but hardest-to-reach demographic in the construction industry, so we need to do more than just hang signs.  

It’s important to get them talking, and while people are often reluctant to open up at first, we have found in our experience that they are more likely to talk freely on the subject when they’re approached. I firmly believe that intervention on site is key to fixing construction’s mental health epidemic. 

Trevor Steven

During my site visits, I used connections to football and the lessons learned in sport to help people talk about their mental health. There are parallels that can be drawn between construction sites and football clubs. Even now, both are heavily male-dominated environments in which it can be seen as a sign of weakness to open up if you’re struggling.   

It has been a pleasure to meet so many of the UK’s construction workers throughout the last 18 months. In that time, we have managed to gather responses from over 1,400 workers to several questions including what they think contributes to poor mental health in the construction industry and whether there is anyone officially responsible for mental health and wellbeing at their place of work. 

As we prepare to publish the results of our survey at a key event next month, I’ve been attending various conferences and roundtable discussions – involving construction companies and members of parliament – to keep the conversation going.  

In March, we were honoured to be a part of the opening of The People’s Place – the Premier League’s first mental health hub, in collaboration with Everton in the Community. 

The results of our survey demonstrate the importance of keeping this issue on boardroom agendas. Therefore, during the next stage of our campaign, we intend to use our research to lobby the government for a change in legislation to support better mental health in the construction sector. We are in full agreement with the views of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for men and boys, which has proposed mandatory mental health sections on procurement frameworks in the construction industry. 

Mental health is the true health and safety crisis in the construction industry today, but it does have the capacity to change, despite the tragic statistics. Just look at how much progress has been made in other areas of health and safety.  

But this campaign for change isn’t going to happen overnight with a single organisation: making real change in our industry demands a collaborative effort – we need to rally together as a whole in the name of change.    

Find out more about Causeway and stay tuned for more information about Trevor’s work.