The Use of Mentoring to Promote Well-being for Female SMART Members

Summary

Women are highly underrepresented in the construction skilled trades. In addition to facing the industry's well-known physical risks, women are subjected to discrimination, harassment, and skills under-utilization. As a result, tradeswomen have increased risk for injury, stress-related health effects, and high attrition rates from apprenticeship programs, thus perpetuating their minority status. Mentoring is a well-established technique for learning technical and personal navigation skills in new or challenging social environments. The investigators propose development and dissemination of a mentorship program through local unions of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), and evaluating its success in reducing women's injury and work stress, while improving retention.

Conditions

• Harassment, Non-Sexual
• Harassment, Sexual
• Bullying, Workplace
• Mental Stress
• Work-Related Condition
• Work-related Injury
• Work Related Stress

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Mentoring program

Apprentice-level female construction workers will be assigned to a mentor who has gone through a rigorous mentorship training. Participants will be asked to meet with a mentor at least 4 times/year in person to discuss the challenges of being a female in construction, learn coping mechanisms, and otherwise discuss the unique challenges of the job environment.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH/CDC)

  collaborator FED

• University of Washington

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Marissa G Baker, PhD · University of Washington

• Lily M Monsey, BA · University of Washington

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

21 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-03-01

Primary Completion

2024-07-01

Completion

2024-12-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations