Bluehats come together to share, learn and connect at the 2024 Bluehats conference

Last Friday we held our second Bluehats conference at the Melbourne Museum.

Over half a day Bluehats had the chance to come together to share, learn and connect with other Bluehats.

This year the event was MC’d by Incolink Mental Health Educator Kyp who delivers mental health toolboxes and the Bluehats sessions.

As a former social worker Kyp gave valuable insights throughout the day as attendees heard from different speakers.

The theme this year was ‘Construction and the impact on the family unit’ and speakers spoke about different challenges workers in the industry face.

Financial education

Finances can have a significant impact on workers and their families, particularly when projects are changing or coming to an end.

We heard from Katie, our Financial Counsellor, who runs the Financial Rights program, supporting members who find themselves with unmanageable debt.

Katie shared some ways she’s helped members recently and the types of support she can offer including negotiating with banks, support to put hardship arrangements in place and providing information on what financial options are available to them.

We also heard from Dona our newest team member; Dona is running our new Financial Advice program where she helps members plan for the future.

While both Katie and Dona spoke about the importance of having a clear and realistic budget, Dona focused on building wealth for the future, while Katie directly helped members who have found themselves in financial hardship.

Attendees got to see a sneak peek of Dona’s Financial Advice toolbox that will be coming to sites early next year. Dona went through how she audited her own streaming services and some tips members can keep in mind when they’re thinking about investing.

Bluehats panel

A highlight for the Incolink team was the Bluehats panel where we got to hear firsthand from four of our registered Bluehats about why they signed up, some of the challenges and importantly what they love about the program.

We also heard about what they wish they knew when they first became a Bluehat and the impact it’s had on their own journey with mental health.

Guest speakers

We heard from guest speakers on a range of topics relating to mental health and family life.

Doug Hawkins gave a moving speech about his mental health journey and what he’s been through, receiving a standing ovation.

Dom from Relationships Australia Victoria spoke about the 7 different types of dad and how we can best show up for ourselves and our family.

Emma Thompson and Dr Kylie King from Monash University came to talk about the results from the Bluehats study they undertook in collaboration with Planet Plumbing.

We also heard from Gary Maas MP the Member for Narre Warren South as he spoke about the importance of mental health and what the state government was doing to support prevention initiatives.

Opportunities for connection

Connection was an important part of this year's conference, throughout the day speakers brought their messages back to connecting with others.

Our Bluehats are the ones actively supporting others on-site every day and it was important that they had an opportunity to meet other Bluehats who are facing similar challenges and situations to them.

Kyp gave attendees the challenge to meet and connect with three Bluehats they haven’t met before, and they certainly rose to the challenge.

It was great to see the networking and knowledge sharing happening in the breaks throughout the event.

We’d like to thank Cbus and WorkSafe Victoria for their continued support of the Bluehats program.

We’d also like to thank Master Builders Victoria, Bosch and Blue Steel for generously donating prizes on the day.

Event photos

We had a photographer and videographer there on the day, all the photos can be found here.

Button: Access the event gallery

The videos from the event will be published in the coming weeks.