Walking the talk on mental health

Whether you work to live or live to work, workplaces and colleagues play a vital role in the wellbeing of every employee as they are the people and places most of our time is spent.

This has been especially true for workers at CS Energy’s Callide Power Station recently, where 330 people – including external contractors brought in for the project - are currently working on an overhaul.

“As well as the work, a majority of the workers are away from home for long periods of time, meaning they’re also away from their friends, families, and support networks,” CS Energy Health and Safety Business Partner Andrew Cashin said.

“This makes workplace support all the more essential to maintaining their mental and emotional wellbeing.”

Andrew recently engaged Bunyarra Wellbeing Co to provide counselling services and coaching to leaders on the overhaul to assist them to support their teams.

Taking an immersive, integrated approach, Bunyarra’s counsellors have industry experience and walk the site to actively engage people in conversation.

“It’s not just people who are struggling that we engage in conversation; we talk to everyone,” said Bunyarra founder Michael Sanford, who was previously a rigger and scaffolder.

“A lot of the time, people don’t know how to start conversations around mental health and wellbeing, so my team walks around during the shift to talk to people - we start the conversation so they don’t have to,” he said.

“As my counsellors have actually worked in the industry, they can build rapport quickly and integrate with the teams on site.



“Orin, who is currently working on site at Callide Power Station, is actually from the Biloela region himself, so he’s a local boy and it adds a level of rapport which is so important in regional communities.”

Michael said people are a company’s greatest assets, and if they’re struggling mentally then they’re going to struggle physically.

“By proactively providing support like this, the issues people need support for become minimal as they’re being addressed instead of building up.”

Andrew said the service has been made available to everyone at the Callide site, and the response has been so great that Michael will be joining Orin on site to provide more support services and training for leaders.

“Through this training our managers will receive the soft skills – the tools - they need to be able to support their teams,” Andrew said.

“They’ll be able to use these tools to support their teams as they see best – that could be through having engaging pre-start sessions with the team before work commences in the mornings, or even just starting up a meaningful conversation with someone who they’ve identified as needing some support.”

CS Energy also has an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in place to provide free counselling for employees and their families and is an industry partner of suicide prevention charity Mates in Energy.

With a strong focus on promoting a psychologically safe workplace, we are looking to invest in unconscious bias, appropriate workplace behaviour, and inclusive leadership training for the entire workforce.