Day One – Wednesday 29 July
8.30 Registration
9.00 Opening Remarks from the Chair
9.10 Keynote presentation: Supporting the psychological wellbeing of remote employees – Australian Antarctic Program Case Study
- Understanding psychological safety-related pros and cons unique to remote work arrangements
- Safeguarding remote employees from isolation, loneliness and lack of belonging
- Strengthening the boundaries between work and home life for remote employees
- Proactively addressing wellbeing concerns through fostering social connection and monitoring workload intensity
Dr Kimberley Norris, Consultant Clinical Psychologist for the Australian Antarctic Program, Head of Discipline, University of Tasmania
9.55 Building a strong business case for investing in psychological wellbeing programs
- Connecting performance to indicators of psychological ill-health
- Establishing psychological safety programs as a strategic business advantage and cost-saving measure
- Providing a business rationale for meaningful psychological safety programs and their positive impact on productivity
- Mitigating legal and compliance risks resulting from poor psychological safety
Joseph Tonu, Associate Director, Work Health Safety, Wellbeing and Security, Justice Health NSW
Nikki Robinson, Strategic Wellbeing Manager, Justice Health NSW
10.40 Morning Coffee
11.10 Translating psychosocial risk into everyday leadership practice
- Equipping leaders with simple, practical tools to identify and manage psychosocial hazards in diverse and high pressure environments
- Embedding protective factors into daily operations to strengthen wellbeing and reduce burnout
- Designing post-incident support resources that are accessible, culturally sensitive and aligned to organisational risk obligations
- Building leader capability to hold psychologically safe conversations and respond to early warning signs across diverse roles
Teegan Modderman, Chief Mental Health Officer, Queensland Rail
11.55 Reviewing legislative and case law updates regarding psychological wellbeing at work
- Understanding the latest changes to laws and codes of practice on managing psychosocial hazards at work
- Identifying the key psychological safety issues currently dominating claims and regulatory activity
- Establishing the implications of updated legislation and prosecutions for particular types of workplaces
- Separating work-related and preexisting mental health conditions in managing claims
Dr Laura Sowden, Partner, Mills Oakley
12.40 Lunch
1.40 Strengthening collaboration between workplace functions in uplifting psychological wellbeing
- Clarifying roles and responsibilities in workplace psychological safety
- Working productively across HR, safety, and risk functions in developing wellbeing programs
- Creating shared ownership of psychologically safe practices across business functions
- Leveraging different tools and resources across business functions to create meaningful wellbeing programs
Danielle Griffiths, Manager Health and Wellbeing, APA Group
2.25 Supporting the psychological wellbeing of employees experiencing or at risk of burnout
- Understanding what influences wellbeing and burnout
- Recognising the key indicators of burnout risk in your employees
- Fostering a safe and supportive environment for employees to voice concerns
- Using work design to modify workloads and increase supports
Chanelle McEnalley, Group Chief Safety Officer, Ramsay Health
3.10 Afternoon Tea
3.30 Conducting psychological safety risk assessments with a consultative and holistic approach
- Revealing aspects of work with a heightened psychosocial risk in your organisation
- Assessing psychological risks in combination rather than in isolation
- Involving workers directly to understand their experiences of risks and hazards
- Developing action plans based on deficits, and regularly reviewing controls for effectiveness
Nicole Morris, Senior Health and Injury Management Lead, Essential Energy
Michelle Morgan, Senior Health and Injury Management Lead, Essential Energy
4.15 Enhancing line manager capabilities to support their team’s psychological wellbeing
- Educating managers to recognise key indicators of stress or mental ill-health
- Encouraging managers to take proactive action and model psychologically safe behaviours
- Empowering managers to have mental health conversations with their teams
- Ensuring managers are supported with the resources to set goals, delegate tasks, and manage their own stressors
Nicole Rogers, Principal Consultant, Alchimie
5.00 End of Day One
Day Two – Thursday July 30
8.30 Opening Remarks from the Chair
8.40 Sustaining psychological wellbeing in high job demand roles
- Understanding work demands that risk psychological injury
- Designing workloads and flows based on team strengths, weaknesses and capacities
- Adjusting work demands and providing extra job resources to assist workers during difficult times
- Encouraging managers to model positive behaviours in taking breaks and working reasonable hours
Col. Brendan Robinson, Director Work Health Safety – Army, Department of Defence
Col. Jacqueline Costello, Principal Psychologist – Army, Department of Defence
9.25 Understanding regulator perspectives in improving workplace psychological wellbeing
- Identifying the current priorities for WHS regulators across jurisdictions
- Responding productively to improvement notices and investigation outcomes
- Collaborating with regulators to reach positive outcomes in investigations and audits
- Knowing where to turn for advice, resources and guidance in your jurisdiction
Ian Firth, Psychosocial Health and Safety Advisor, SafeWork NSW
10.10 Morning Coffee
10.40 Improving psychosocial safety capacity for inherent trauma risks
- Creating training and resources which strengthen responses to potential traumatic events
- Developing systems which limit undue exposure to traumatic materials
- Equipping leaders to intervene early with sensitivity and empathy when traumatic events occur
- Building robust support systems for employees exposed to traumatic events
Dr Sinead Berry, Associate Director, Staff Health, NSW Ambulance
11.25 Reducing psychological injuries from occupational violence and aggression
- Understanding OVA hazards and the degree of risk to affected employees
- Fostering a culture that views OVA as unacceptable and encourages reporting
- Ensuring OVA incidents are thoroughly investigated and existing controls are reviewed for effectiveness
- Supporting staff to de-escalate OVA incidents and provide appropriate care for those affected
David Brewster, Chief Legal and Safety Officer, Coles
12.10 Lunch
1.10 Moving beyond wellbeing programs to psychosocial risk control in practice
- Examining common system-level failures in hazard identification, risk assessment, and control effectiveness
- Moving from awareness and intention to practical, operational psychosocial risk controls
- Embedding psychosocial hazard management into everyday work design, governance and decision-making
- Ensuring organisational responses address root causes of harm rather than relying on downstream wellbeing initiatives
Dr Tessa Bailey, Principal Consultant, Founder, Opus Centre for Psychosocial Risk
1.55 Securing buy-in for psychological wellbeing strategies from the whole organisation
- Ensuring employee-led design in creating psychological safety programs
- Creating easily accessible, diverse, and flexible psychological safety resources
- Educating employees from all roles and backgrounds on mental health initiatives
- Maintaining dialogue with employees regarding their mental wellbeing and potential supports
Ali Proctor, Health and Wellbeing Specialist, BAE Systems
2.40 Afternoon Tea
3.10 Engaging contractors and volunteers in organisational psychological safety strategies
- Providing appropriate psychological care based on the particular needs of the contractor or volunteer
- Ensuring volunteers and contractors have access to information, education and supervision to uphold their psychological safety
- Including contractors and volunteers in consultation processes around developing psychological safety initiatives
- Developing approaches which suit different types of workers and working arrangements
3.50 Closing Remarks from the Chair
4.00 End of Congress