National Safe Work Month: Psychological Safety Is Workplace Safety

Shane Warren

3 days ago

3 min read

MEDIA RELEASE

For Immediate Release

1 October 2026

National Safe Work Month: Psychological Safety Is Workplace Safety

AAMHP supports Safe Work Australia’s 2026 call for workplaces to make safe and healthy work a commitment “for life”

The Australian Association of Mental Health Practitioners (AAMHP) is supporting National Safe Work Month 2026, calling on Australian workplaces to recognise that work health and safety must protect psychological as well as physical health.

Held throughout October, National Safe Work Month is led by Safe Work Australia. This year’s theme, “Safe work is for life,” emphasises that workplace safety is about more than preventing immediate harm it is about protecting workers’ lives, health and future.

Safe Work Australia reports that 188 Australian workers were fatally injured at work in 2024, while 146,700 serious workers’ compensation claims were recorded in 2023–24, more than 400 serious claims every day.

AAMHP Chair Shane Warren said National Safe Work Month provides an important opportunity to broaden the way organisations think about workplace safety.

“A safe workplace is not simply one where nobody falls from a ladder or is injured by machinery. People also need to be able to work without unreasonable exposure to bullying, violence, chronic excessive demands, poor support, traumatic material or systems of work that progressively damage their psychological health.” [Shane Warren]

“The phrase ‘Safe work is for life’ is particularly powerful because workplace harm does not necessarily finish when somebody clocks off. Psychological injury can follow people home, affect relationships and families, disrupt careers and continue long after the circumstances that caused it.” [Shane Warren]

Safe Work Australia identifies psychosocial hazards including high job demands, low job control, poor support, lack of role clarity, inadequate recognition, poor organisational justice, traumatic exposure, remote or isolated work, bullying, harassment, conflict, violence and aggression. These hazards can contribute to both psychological and physical harm.

AAMHP Secretary Susan Sandy said psychologically safe workplaces require more than wellbeing activities or support offered after harm has already occurred.

“Employee assistance, counselling and mental-health support are important, but they should never become substitutes for addressing the workplace conditions creating harm in the first place.” [Susan Sandy]

“Good psychosocial safety asks organisations to look upstream: how work is designed, how workloads are managed, how change is communicated, whether people have sufficient support and control, and what happens when workers raise a concern.” [Susan Sandy]

Under Australia’s work health and safety framework, psychosocial hazards must be managed through the same risk-management principles applied to other workplace hazards. Safe Work Australia emphasises eliminating psychosocial risks where reasonably practicable and otherwise minimising them, with attention to work design, systems of work, workplace interactions and the duration, frequency and severity of exposure.

Shane Warren said this distinction is important for organisations seeking to improve workplace mental health.

“We need to move beyond the idea that workplace mental health is principally about teaching an individual employee to become more resilient. Resilience has value, but people should not have to become extraordinarily resilient simply to survive poorly designed work.” [Shane Warren]

National Safe Work Month 2026 will examine four areas across October:

For life - why WHS matters;

For health - what WHS protects;

For the future - the long-term impact; and

For all - action across all workplaces.

AAMHP encourages employers, leaders, practitioners and workers to use the month as an opportunity to have practical conversations about both physical and psychosocial hazards, involve workers in identifying risks and commit to changes that prevent harm rather than relying only on responses after an injury has occurred.

Safe work protects more than the hours we spend at work. It protects the lives we return to afterwards.