Civil engineering and utilities business provides staff with mental health first aid training through The Skills Service

Wakefield-based business, Peter Duffy Limited, wanted to ensure that supervisors and managers are trained to spot the signs of mental ill health and know how to approach staff.

Melissa Stead, Administrator at Peter Duffy Ltd said, “We feel that the training is necessary, particularly as our industry is predominately males working in the construction sector which has the highest links to male suicide. We want to raise awareness in our workforce and have trained staff in all levels of seniority and departments. We have so far trained all directors, senior managers, office support staff and have now begun to focus our attention on the Site staff so have recently trained some of our Site Managers, Supervisors and Operatives.”

“The ESF funding helps to support training that is not seen as “Mandatory” and may sometimes be overlooked as our industry has a lot of mandatory training which usually takes priority. We hope the training will have a positive impact on our workforce and will have raised awareness on the sometimes taboo subject, all our staff have since been issued with a notice detailing who is trained in Mental Health and their contact details so they are aware of who they can confidentially speak to.

“The WYCC is incredibly useful and informative. They have a wide range of courses available which gives plenty of opportunity for development of our staff.

“Skills advisor, Parminder, has been really helpful from the start of the WYCC signing up service to being granted funding. He regularly contacts myself to keep me updated with the next steps and guides me through exactly what I need to do which makes the process easier for me. He helps out by sourcing training providers and shopping around for the best quotes which saves our company even more time and money. The training provider Sleigh Services’ Samuel Leigh is a very informative, friendly and engaging tutor. We get nothing but good praise and feedback from our colleagues that take part in the training.”

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