One of the mind-blowing silences in safety (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-culture-silences/ ) is on resilience.
Just like Safety ethics ignores power, helping and care (https://safetyrisk.net/culture-silences-in-safety-care-ethics/) so to, Safety ignores resilience in all its spin about psychosocial hazards (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-ethics-spor-and-how-to-foster-the-abuse-of-power/).
When the safety industry talks about matters pertaining to psychosocial health and mental health it excludes a discussion on persons, ethics and resilience. Well done Safety!
Just have a look at any of these so-called ‘codes of practice’ about psychosocial hazards (eg. https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/safety-topic/managing-health-and-safety/mental-health/psychosocial-hazards) and try to find anything on resilience! It’s not there!
But hey, we can fix that with a 1-day course.
Why is that? Well, it’s quite simple. Safety is the industry about objects not people. This is why safety is not a profession (https://safetyrisk.net/the-mis-naming-of-safety-as-a-profession/).
One can recite the word ‘profession’ as much as one likes, but it doesn’t make one professional. Without an ethic of personhood and an understanding of power, one can’t begin to understand much at all about working with people.
This is what you get from an industry that identifies itself as zero (https://safetyrisk.net/safety-as-zero-the-perfect-event/), is infused with behaviourism (https://safetyrisk.net/the-curse-of-behaviourism/) and engineering (https://safetyrisk.net/enrol-in-first-course-in-safety-engineering-with-dr-barry-spud/) and has no articulated ethic on personhood.
I know, let’s find out about culture and ask an engineer? I know, let’s find out about people and mental health, ask an engineer! No wonder listening, care, helping and resilience don’t make the psychosocial agenda for safety. What is psychosocial all about for Safety? The movement of objects.
Please tell me I’m wrong. But just look at the data. Safety loves to talk about is duty to objects not duty to persons. That’s what the AIHS BoK on Ethics is all about (https://safetyrisk.net/the-aihs-bok-and-ethics-check-your-gut/). Just have a look at the AIHS BoK contents and 80% is a focus on objects and systems. Have a look at the safety curriculum and it’s the same.
When the peak body in safety can talk about ‘humans as the hazard’ you know where the mental health problem is situated.
No wonder Carrillo’s book Voices From the Resistance (https://safetyrisk.net/ohs-voices-from-the-resistance-rosa-carrillo/) demonstrates that safety people are most harmed by their own industry!
You simply won’t find anywhere in safety, a well-articulated position on personhood and Ethics.
You will find well-articulated positions on these matters in real professions such as Health, Medicine, Social Work and Teaching, but you won’t find anything in Safety on these. Neither anything on these in so called ‘safety differently’, HOP, S2 or ‘new view’ which of course is not ‘different’ nor a ‘new view’. Unless there is a fundamental shift in Methodology, slogans in safety remain safety with new slogans.
Even when safety talks about ‘psychosocial health’ this is positioned within a focus on ‘hazards’ (https://safetyrisk.net/what-is-psychosocial-safety/).
However, if you want to read a good focus on personhood and ethics you can start here: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/the-social-psychology-of-risk-handbook/ and of course for free download. If you want a positive, constructive, alternative and helpful focus on persons and ethics then you can find these in SPoR.
If you want a good read on the nature of risk and resilience you can download our latest book for free: https://www.humandymensions.com/product/everyday-social-resilience-being-in-risk/
We also have on offer:
Free books on SPoR: https://www.humandymensions.com/shop/
Free videos: https://vimeo.com/cllr
Free courses: https://vimeo.com/showcase/3949916; https://vimeo.com/showcase/4883640
Or Free conversations on risk: https://vimeo.com/showcase/3938199
It’s not too late to join us face-to-face at the SPoR Convention in Canberra in one week: https://spor.com.au/canberra-convention/ just email: [email protected] for your place.
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA
Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.
Related
