Building positive relationships with others is important for our wellbeing. For seafarers working away from home for long periods, it can be difficult to remain in close contact with family and friends, so the opportunity to connect with other seafarers can be a major benefit. However, long working hours, smaller crews, and cultural differences mean there can be barriers to socialising with shipmates.
Aims and objectives
Our Social Interaction (SIM) project aims to help shipping and ship management companies improve seafarers’ social interaction on board, and to positively impact the wellbeing of their seafarers through using programmes with proven success. The project will:
Benefits to shipping and ship management companies
Shipping and ship management companies can make a big difference to the happiness of their seafarers with some relatively straightforward changes. In most cases, this is also likely to contribute to a seafarer’s job satisfaction, motivation and productivity.
Along with the moral motivations for providing opportunities for social activities on board, there are likely to be a number of business benefits:
How can companies participate?
We are approaching companies who prioritise the wellbeing of their seafarers to share information about their efforts to improve crew cohesion on board. As well as the benefits listed above, participating companies will have the opportunity to:
Please contact caitlin.vaughan@iswan.org.uk for more information on joining the pilot project.
Phase One – Project Report
On 5 January 2021, we published a report for Phase One of the SIM Project. The research in this phase consisted of a large survey of seafarers and other maritime stakeholders as well as 10 in-depth telephone interviews, which examined the relevant drivers and barriers to the promotion of social interaction and specific activities which seafarers around the world identified as helping to engage people.
Download the full report here and a summary of the findings here.
Connecting Crew campaign
From 29 June to 10 July 2020, we held a two-week digital campaign to highlight the importance of connecting with others for crew wellbeing. All the resources can be found here.
1 https://mhfaengland.org/mhfa-centre/news/cbi-front-of-mind/
2 https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/how-support-mental-health-work
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