The UK P&I Club announced it will be supporting the Sailors’ Society Emotional Wellness training module within its Wellness at Sea coaching program.
The training, the second in a set of five modules, is designed to improve emotional wellbeing through early identification of mental health issues and empowerment of the seafarer to handle challenging situations at sea.
Wellness at Sea seeks to combat issues by addressing ‘wellness’ as a holistic concept made up of five areas of wellbeing: social, emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual.
The wellbeing of crew is a priority for UK P&I Club and its UK P&I PEME program aims to detect physical conditions or illnesses in order to avoid crew becoming ill while on-board. While it is rare to see crew fail their medical test due to mental health issues, UK P&I Club continues to see an increase in mental health, and suicide cases, in the claims presented by members.
Sophia Bullard, PEME Director, UK P&I Club said, “We are pleased to be supporting the Sailors’ Society in this very important program. Mental health affects crew of all ages, nationalities and ranks. A recent analysis of crew mental health revealed anxiety, social isolation, pressure of work and disturbed sleep can all be experienced by crew. These situations often lead to an incident and sadly, in some severe cases, they even led to the death of the seafarer.
“To assist our members concerned with the rise in suicide cases we spoke to a number of industry experts, including the Sailors’ Society, who introduced us to their Wellness at Sea Program. We quickly realized the program was a unique product and a valuable addition to the training of crew worldwide.
“Through the training crew become better equipped to identify and manage the challenges of life at sea and this can help prevent deterioration of their health whilst on-board. The program could lead to a decline in incidents and potentially could save a life. We encourage all our members to consider the Wellness at Sea project for their crew.”
Sandra Welch, Sailors’ Society’s director of program, said, “We are really pleased to have UK P&I Club’s backing and recognition of the value of Sailors’ Society’s Wellness at Sea program. Seafarers who undertake Wellness at Sea coaching will be equipped to better meet their social, emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual needs, thereby helping to prevent and minimize poor health or incidents at sea. By focusing on people rather than problems, we seek to support the centre point around which our industry revolves.”
