Trauma Risk Management Program Under Development

March on Stress and Human Rights at Sea have joined forces to provide expert psychological support options to personnel in the maritime industry. The collaboration will see both organizations working together in order to help build resilience and support the psychological wellbeing of maritime personnel. This includes working together to provide a bespoke package of Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) for the maritime industry.

TRiM is a peer-support system which seeks to build resilience by keeping employees functioning after traumatic events by providing support and education to those who require it. By training practitioners at an operational level throughout an organization, TRiM aims to identify those who are not coping after potentially traumatizing events and ensure they are signposted to professional sources of help.

Professor Neil Greenberg, Clinical and Managing Director of March on Stress, said: “We are delighted to work together with Human Rights at Sea (HRAS) and the maritime community to safeguard the psychological wellbeing of maritime personnel.

“While only about 3 percent of the UK population are likely to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), personnel working in high-risk or trauma exposed organizations experience much higher rates of PTSD.

“We recognise that whilst HRAS works to promote the fair and humane treatment of individuals who work as seafarers, unfortunately there will inevitably be times that mariner’s mental health will be adversely affected by their work.

“The important association between March on Stress and HRAS will help to build resilience for individuals and the maritime industry through the prevention, detection and treatment of occupational and operational stress, including PTSD.”

David Hammond, Founder of HRAS, said: “The HRAS partnership with March on Stress is yet another step forwards in further developing the expanding scope of HRAS support services within the maritime environment and specifically for seafarers who have been the victim of abuses during their employment. This new service also prepares maritime businesses in identifying, training for and dealing with emerging psychological issues.

“I am delighted once again to be working closely with an internationally recognized partner whose pedigree and experience intimately supports the HRAS aim and objectives. Without such collaborative partnerships HRAS would not be able to expand its services to seafarers and deliver tangible support to them on a global basis”.

March on Stress is a psychological health consultancy that operates worldwide in close partnership with clients who typically place their people ‘in harm’s way’. We have vast experience in providing high quality, evidence-based psychological health support to companies working in the security, transport, media, government, oil and gas, and emergency services sectors.

The HRAS international initiative now has a new international head office, based in London, which has been established at 9 Bedford Row, London, WC1R 4AZ. The expansion of the HRAS international initiative is supported in its work by civil society organizations, seafarer pastoral entities, maritime associations, commercial companies, international legal firms, individuals and academia. This has allowed for a rapid growth and expansion of the HRAS online platform since its launch in April 2014. Last month, the HRAS platform and news feed were followed by 74 countries and HRAS is now represented in 13 states by correspondents.

The HRAS initiative is now supported by over 39 international entities and is currently running two international investigations into the murder of seafarers on the high seas.