24-25 July 2024, Sydney
Conference Day One – Wednesday 24 July
8.30 Registration
9.00 Opening remarks from the chair
9.10 Developing a psychologically safe culture thoughtfully and effectively
- Assessing your existing organisational culture to target key areas for improvement
- Pinpointing the key actions and strategies for effective cultural change
- Developing active participation and ownership of organisational culture by all employees
- Improving your organisational culture continuously
Col. Maureen Montalban, Director Military Mental Health & Psychology, Department of Defence
9.55 Highlighting leaders as a driver to organisational mental health
- Providing psychological support teams through their leaders
- Setting organisational expectations through leadership actions
- Equipping leaders with people skills in addition to operational expertise
- Ensuring leaders across your organisation are conscious of their obligations
Marc McLaren, Safety Director, John Holland
10.40 Morning Coffee
11.10 Ensuring line managers engage in constructive conversations around mental health
- Normalising mental health topics for leaders, managers, and peer support officers
- Promoting a person-centric approach to conversations between line leaders and employees
- Ensuring direct supervisors consider psychosocial hazards within and beyond the workplace
- Promoting respectful and constructive conversations
Anji Head, Senior Manager Health and Wellbeing, The University of Sydney
11.55 Designing effective long-term psychological wellbeing training programs
- Targeting key areas of the business for effective wellbeing training
- Evaluating the indicators of a successful psychological safety training program
- Assessing the advantages and weaknesses of working with third-party training providers
- Maximising the effectiveness of wellbeing training with efficient and regular sessions
Ann-Maree Hartley, Principal Psychologist, NSW Ambulance
12.40 Lunch
13.40 Approaching diversity and inclusion as a psychological wellbeing tool
- Evaluating the benefits of inclusive organisational culture for psychological wellbeing
- Collaborating with diversity and inclusion experts to improve your mental health programs
- Ensuring providers and third-party consultants are engaged constructively
- Reframing wellbeing relating to diversity and inclusion within a ‘capability approach’
- Motivating organisational changes around diversity and inclusion which promote wellbeing
Chris White, Assistant Secretary Staff Health and Wellbeing, Department of Home Affairs
14.25 Mitigating the psychosocial risks of potential bullying and harassment
- Identifying potential high-risk areas of bullying and harassment in your organisation
- Transforming your organisational culture to encourage positive professional behaviour
- Ensuring your approach to inappropriate behaviour extends beyond regulatory minimums
- Managing all stakeholders in realised instances of workplace bullying and harassment
Melanie Fisher, Global Head of Health (Mental Health and Wellbeing), BHP Billiton
15.10 Afternoon Tea
15.40 Considering risks of sexual misconduct in your preventative psychological safety strategies
- Ensuring the risk of misconduct within your workplace is taken seriously
- Embedding standards from new Respect@Work legislation in your safety strategy
- Approaching sexual misconduct as both a psychological safety and an HR issue
- Producing a psychologically safe culture where victims and survivors can voice concerns
- Protecting your WHS professionals from vicarious trauma in misconduct incidences
Maria Twomey, Director Discrimination and Harassment Prevention Unit, Transport for NSW
16.20 Improving overall communication around psychological health and wellbeing
- Promoting psychological safety within organisation-wide messaging
- Framing psychological health and wellbeing in accessible terms
- Tailoring your communications approach to your workforce
- Communicating key ideas and expectations effectively
- Ensuring communication is reinforced by appropriate action
Lisa McKeown, General Manager Health Safety and Environment, Snowy Hydro Limited
17.00 End of Conference Day One
Conference Day Two – Thursday 25 July
8.30 Registration
9.00 Opening remarks from the chair
9.10 Constructing effective risk management systems in a preventative wellbeing system
- Evaluating the role of risk management in an increasingly preventative environment
- Developing risk management procedures according to updated psychosocial risk regulations
- Collaborating between risk specialists and wellbeing health and safety professionals to deliver an integrated strategic & operational approach
- Ensuring psychosocial risk management is a central component of enterprise processes, ways of working and employee lifecycle
Jessica Falconer, National WHS Manager, Aware Super
9.55 Prioritising sustainable and continuous improvement of your mental health and wellbeing strategy
- Identifying key vulnerabilities and indicators of successful wellbeing intervention
- Designing realistic timelines for effective improvement of organisational mental health
- Ensuring your health and wellbeing policy documents complement your ongoing actions
- Achieving whole-of-organisation buy-in to continuously improve health outcomes as a team
Paul Willingham, Group Manager Risk and Safety, City of Parramatta
10.40 Morning Coffee
11.10 Providing constructive solutions to minimise occupational violence and aggression
- Ensuring that employee safety is the highest priority at every level of the organisation
- Providing resources and support to staff at high risk of psychological injury
- Developing incident management systems and practices to minimise escalation
- Training employees to manage violence and aggression safely
Alexandra Mitchell, Trauma Programs Manager, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
11.55 Protecting your safety and wellbeing teams from trauma risks
- Providing specialised and preventative care to high risk WHS teams
- Mitigating the additional risks of vicarious trauma in your team
- Understanding the importance of retention and peer support for long-term staff wellbeing
- Providing preventative support and check-ins for your health and safety teams
Dianne Van Berlo, Executive Director Health, Safety and Staff Wellbeing, NSW Department of Education
12.40 Lunch
13.40 Improving work design throughout your organisation for psychological health and wellbeing
- Mitigating underlying operational risks of psychological injury across all business units
- Integrating work design considerations into your overall health and wellbeing strategy
- Collaborating between key business functions for effective and safe work design
- Ensuring job design continues to adapt to new wellbeing challenges in every team
David Burroughs, Principal Psychologist, Australian Psychological Services, and Chief Mental Health Officer, Westpac
14.25 Mitigating the risks of overwork with thoughtful job design
- Navigating psychosocial hazards around overwork in high performance teams
- Anticipating indicators of potential overwork in your organisation
- Making a business case for reduction of workloads and responsibilities
- Encouraging employees to share their challenges in a safe environment
Chris Doyle, Group Head of EH&S and Assurance, Lendlease
15.10 Afternoon Tea
15.40 Centring health and wellbeing in the process of Return to Work from psychological injuries
- Ensuring your workplace is safe and welcoming for injured employees
- Developing your RTW strategy around the qualities of your workplace
- Accounting for secondary psychological injury after physical incidents
- Complementing your RTW approach with best-practice prevention and wellbeing
Taylor Kirkwood, Return to Work Advisor, Rehab and Retraining Officer, Fire and Rescue New South Wales
16.20 Considering current regulatory constraints and conditions within psychological safety law
- Understanding key developments in psychosocial safety regulations and cases
- Identifying relevant regulatory agencies and supportive services in psychological safety
- Designing an approach to new safety regulations that transcends compliance requirements
- Ensuring officers and leaders are aware of their obligations and potential penalties
Carlie Holt, Partner, Pinsent Masons
17.00 End of Conference Day Two