SKAL peer support

Background

Members have expressed unreserved praise for the Kollegahjälpen services of our counterpart organisations in Sweden and Norway. SKAL seeks to provide a similar service for Finnish haulage industry professionals.

The peer support service is provided by peer support staff, who are largely drawn from member enterprises of SKAL. Each staff member has completed the Finnish Red Cross emotional support course, and many also have previous experience of providing emotional support or of responding to accidents affecting them personally or involving colleagues at the same enterprise. About twenty people have been trained to date, and now provide a peer support network covering the whole of Finland.

Accident victims can generally expect to receive care only for physical injuries. It is just as important, however, to take care of the emotional trauma of an accident that may continue to distress the victim long after any physical scars have healed. It is particularly common for nightmares and torment to persist in cases where someone “crossed the path of a lorry for no apparent reason”. This emotional pain was formerly often laid at the door of colleagues and family members. The aim now is to make sure that everyone working in the road haulage sector can find a sympathetic ear when required. This service does not rule out professional help, but services of this kind often seem inaccessible, the threshold for seeking them is high, and there may be long waiting lists for formal treatment.

SKAL arranges group training events for peer support staff that also provide resources for bearing the burden of helping.

Here’s how it works

In cases of accident a heavy goods vehicle driver or business may call the road service of the Automobile and Touring Club of Finland on 0200 8080 (EUR 1.95/min + local network charge) at any time of the day or night. This call may also be made by someone close to the person concerned. Calls to this number are transferred to the nearest member of the SKAL peer support team. The call may even come from the accident site, which may even enable a team member to provide on the spot support to a driver still suffering from shock. It is anyway best to contact the service at the earliest opportunity, although one may always call later. The most important thing is to seek help. Emergency service crew members may also advise people in need to call the peer support number.

Some facts about road accidents

Fewer than one hundred road accidents a year in Finland involve heavy goods vehicles (88 accidents in 2008), with only about fifteen of these caused by the HGV. This means that the HGV is most commonly the passive party to a collision.

Seat belt use became compulsory in heavy goods vehicles on 1 May 2006. A road safety survey of seat belt use in 2007 found that about 74 per cent of HGV drivers always use seat belts. About ten HGV drivers are killed and twice as many are injured in road accidents in Finland annually.

Seat belts save lives, so don’t forget to buckle up!

Please tell me more about SKAL peer support

For further details of SKAL peer support, please e-mail Communications Manager Kirsi Heikkilä: kirsi.heikkila[at]skal.fi.