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During Stress Awareness Month, our friends at Band of Builders (BoB) have shared the news that they have expanded their wellbeing and mental health support – which is available to every Williams customer.

Ironmongery Direct’s 2022 report highlighted that almost two thirds of tradespeople experience work-related stress at least once a month. This can have a severe negative impact on the individual’s wellbeing and quality of life if ignored.

Below features a guest blog from Band of Builders talking about their new platform service and how you can access it.

The charity – which was founded in 2016 to help members of the UK construction industry who are battling illness or injury through the completion of practical projects carried out by volunteers – has launched the new service thanks to its Big Brew campaign. The Big Brew encourages UK construction industry workers and tradespeople to come together during a tea break to support one another and remove the taboo around mental health in the sector.

The new Volunteer Assistance Programme has been designed to support people struggling with issues including depression, anxiety, stress, addiction, relationship and marital problems, and financial issues. The platform offers counselling, legal information, financial information, consumer information, career guidance, life coaching, mediation, health information, cancer support, autism support, elderly care support and parent coaching.

The new platform service can be accessed via the Wellbeing Support page on the BoB website, where there is more information about the service and a self-referral form. There is also signposting information for people in immediate crisis.

Peter Cape, Big Brew lead at BoB, said that making increased mental health and wellbeing provision available for the UK construction industry is an important step forward in trying to help people manage stress issues now so that they don’t escalate further.

“When we launched our counselling service last year, it was a proud moment for the Big Brew and BoB – but we quickly realised that counselling alone was not enough,” he said.

“Since then, we have looked at ways to improve the service by providing a more holistic approach because it’s important that people are able to get interventions earlier or address some of the issues that are contributing towards their mental health issues.

“It’s rather fitting that we have launched the service during Stress Awareness Month, as its impact is best summed up by the old tradesperson’s van analogy: if the van is serviced on a regular basis, then it will be reliable and go on for miles, but if it’s not serviced, then the chances of it breaking down increase.”

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Stress Awareness Month: Band of Builders expands service support