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Seafarer's Mental Health Webinar

On 9th June Alandia's Loss Prevention, together with Sailors' Society and Safe Marine, hosted a webinar regarding seafarers' mental health.

Seafarers are a risk group for mental disorders because of distance from family, long work hours and fatigue. In this webinar, we discuss the most common mental health disorders depression and anxiety – and how to prevent the crew from symptoms. Mental health has a significant impact on the shipping industry. It affects crews’ motivation and performance. Poor mental health increases the risks in vessel operations. Because poor mental health is stigmatized and often a sensitive subject to discuss, it is of high importance that we dare bring the topic to the surface and take preventative actions.

Johanna has a background in behavioural science and psychology. She is a part of the Loss Prevention team at Alandia and contributes with her knowledge of the human factor.

Alandia Commercial Marine is the unit within the Alandia Försäkring Abp that handles marine insurances, the core business of the group. Since founding in 1938, we have serviced the needs of the shipping community and are today active in our home markets Nordic and Baltic countries and in addition Alandia is also active in the Continental Europe.

Our organization consists of 40 marine insurance specialists at three locations in Mariehamn, Stockholm, and Helsinki. Among our specialists, there are master mariners, chief engineers, electrical engineers, naval architects, maritime lawyers, behavioural scientist and technical insurance specialists. In an emergency, our experience and expertise are to our insured client’s disposal 24/7.

Alandia is a stable and reliable partner who delivers comprehensive insurance solutions adapted to our clients’ individual needs, and we have a focus on long-term relationships. We are one of the leading marine insurance providers in Scandinavia.

Dr Claire Pekcan is Director of Safe Marine Ltd, a human factors consultancy specialising in people and safety management in the maritime sector and whose mission is to inspire and guide maritime organisations to adopt progressive people management practices.

Formerly a Professor of Maritime Applied Psychology at Warsash Maritime Academy, Claire is a work psychologist by background and has helped ship management companies understand the drivers of their safety culture, developed safety management systems for ports, advised on the management of fatigue risk in ship and shore operations, contributed to two major research projects into new technologies on-board ship, as well as led the development of professional development and degree programmes for seafarers as a university lecturer.

Recently she has written about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on seafarers psychological well-being for CHIRP, advised INTERTANKO and OCIMF on the development of a behavioural competency framework for vessel operators as well as assisted INTERTANKO to develop a Human Resource Management Maturity Model.

Claire currently sits on the Maritime Advisory Board of Maritime CHIRP, is a standing member of the OCIMF-Intertanko Joint Safety Initiative, is a regular contributor to the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency Human Element Advisory Group and technical consultant to INTERTANKO’s Human Element Committee of which she was formerly Vice Chair.

Johan Smith is the author and programme manager of the award-winning Wellness at Sea Programme. He joined Sailors’ Society, a leading maritime charity, in 2014. Sharing the belief that the human element in seafaring needs to be valued, supported and invested in, they have developed Wellness at Sea to become one of the leading wellness interventions in the industry. The holistic philosophy the programme follows was an industry first and, today, Sailors’ Society is grateful for the positive impact the programme has had on thousands of seafarers. The programme has won the Safety at Sea award for Best Crew Welfare Programme and the Seatrade Award for Investment in People. The Sailors’ Society are constantly exploring new and innovative ways to serve seafarers at sea, in port and at home.