John McNamara, Executive General Manager – Statutory Workers Compensation, and Dr Alexandra West, Victoria Police’s Senior Police Psychologist, presented Case Studies in Mental Health and Mental Injury Management in Safety Sensitive Industries at the 17th Annual National Workers' Compensation Summit this week.
GB was a major sponsor of the event, with the summit highlighting key challenges for the workers' compensation industry and new initiatives for the future.
John's presentation focused on key trends in mental injuries for police, providing an analysis of more than 200,000 police and/or mental injury claims managed by GB over the last five years,
The analysis showed that, while overall claim frequencies are trending downward, mental health claims for safety sensitive industries are increasing. The analysis also revealed that mental injuries for safety sensitive industries are disproportionately costly and disproportionately difficult to close when compared to mental health claims from other industries.
The results suggested that traditional approaches to mental injury prevention are not sufficient for the challenges faced by safety sensitive industries, and that innovative approaches are required to tackle the specific challenges inherent in these types of jobs.
Dr West followed, presenting an in depth case study of the Victoria Police group treatment program for trauma and psychological health.
Dr West drew insights from a recent clinical trial exploring the role of early intervention in improving mental health, and showed how a group treatment program for trauma and psychological health had been effective in reducing the risks of trauma in a policing organisation
John McNamara and Dr Alexandra West
