Advocacy

As a member of the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance, we support all Australian workplaces through the Heads Up Initiative and the National Workplace Initiative to create mentally healthy workplaces for business and workers – strengthening our community and our economy.

SuperFriend has been an active member of this roundtable, aimed at bringing together the mental health sector and the financial services industry to affect improved policy and practice change for customers and members.

The Health Benefits of Good Work (HBGW) is an initiative from the Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (AFOEM) of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). This initiative is based on compelling Australasian and international evidence that good work is beneficial to people’s health and wellbeing and that long-term work absence, work disability and unemployment generally have a negative impact on health and wellbeing. SuperFriend is a signatory to the Health Benefits of Work Consensus Statement, along with many of Australia’s leading organisations. Its purpose is to bring together a wide range of stakeholders to affirm the importance of work as a determinant of health.

Suicide Prevention Australia (SPA) is the peak body for suicide prevention in Australia, representing over 240 Members and Associates. As a member of SPA, SuperFriend works to build a stronger suicide prevention sector to save lives, a more aware and engaged community, and a more effective regulatory and funding environment.

Mental Health Australia (MHA) is the peak, national non-government organisation representing and promoting the interests of the Australian mental health sector, committed to achieving better mental health for all Australians. SuperFriend is a voting member of MHA, and as a member joins numerous national organisations representing consumers, carers, special needs groups, clinical service providers, public and private mental health service providers, researchers and state/territory community mental health peak bodies. Through our active membership, the SuperFriend team works with MHA on numerous system-wide change initiatives via Policy Forums and broader strategic discussions.

Through Superannuation and Insurance Industry associations (including AIST, ISA, ALUCA, ANZIIF, FSC and numerous other bodies), SuperFriend acts as a trusted advisor and provider of workplace health and wellbeing consulting services, specific to the superannuation, insurance and broader finance industries. We collaborate with these peak bodies to drive understanding and action; collectively helping our industry (and related workplaces) make sustained and positive change to workplace mental health and wellbeing.

Our work with industry associations is broad and varies from sharing of resources and tools across the membership to providing expert speakers to share insights, learnings and expertise.

Often our work can be quite specific. For example – providing guidance and advising the AIST around the important topic of Vulnerable Members or drawing on the membership of these associations to find members for lived-experience panels and other areas of critical need.

Numerous times each year, SuperFriend gathers insurance industry leaders to discuss mental health issues as part of a community of practice.

We discuss numerous ways that participating Insurance partners can help their people, members, organisations, and our whole industry. We then prioritise ideas to focus our collective activity. For example – how we can work collectively to drive industry-wide capability uplift around mental health.