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

Mental Stress Clinical Trial

Official title:

Advancing Women in the Sheet Metal Workers' Trade: A Coordinated Mentoring Program to Promote Safety, Health, and Well-being

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Active, not recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT04247880
• Other study ID #: STUDY00009270
• Secondary ID: U60OH009762-11
• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: March 1, 2021
• Est. completion date: December 31, 2024

Study information

• Verified date: November 2023
• Source: University of Washington
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial 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.

Description:

Journey-level workers will be trained on effective mentoring techniques, and matched to approximately 100 women apprentices within participating local unions. Mentees will be followed for two years within the mentorship program, with another 100 women apprentices in locals not receiving the mentorship training similarly followed as controls. The impact of participation in mentoring programs will be measured through apprentices' experience of stress, coping mechanisms, safety climate, and retention in the apprenticeship programs. Specifically, the investigators propose to:

Aim 1: Develop a mentorship training program for journey-level sheet metal workers to assist women apprentices in navigating the challenges faced by women in trades

Aim 2: Disseminate the training and assist locals in developing effective mentorship programs

Aim 3: Evaluate the effectiveness of the mentoring programs specified in Aims 1 and 2

Aim 4: Disseminate the best practices for supporting women apprentices in the skilled trades.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Enrollment: 230
• Est. completion date: December 31, 2024
• Est. primary completion date: July 1, 2024
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Female
• Age group: 21 Years to 65 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• All mentors must be journey-level sheet metal workers that are members of the SMART (International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers) Union. All mentees and control apprentices must be apprentice-level sheet metal workers that are members of the SMART Union, and identify as woman.

Exclusion Criteria:

• No exclusions will be made on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, age, disability or religion for mentors, mentees, and control apprentices. No exclusions will be made on the basis of gender for mentors. For mentees and control apprentices, those that do not identify as a woman will be excluded.

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

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

Intervention

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.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 49	Albuquerque	New Mexico
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 85	Atlanta	Georgia
United States	Columbus Sheet Metal Workers Apprenticeship	Columbus	Ohio
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 9	Denver	Colorado
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 17	Dorchester	Massachusetts
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 66	Everett	Washington
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 105	Glendora	California
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 73	Hillside	Illinois
United States	Hawaii Sheet Metal Workers Local 293	Honolulu	Hawaii
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 20	Indianapolis	Indiana
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 10	Maplewood	Minnesota
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 28	New York	New York
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 19	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania
United States	Phoenix Area Local 359	Phoenix	Arizona
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 16	Portland	Oregon
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 36	Saint Louis	Missouri
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 67	San Antonio	Texas
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 104	San Jose	California
United States	Sheet Metal Workers Local 63	Springfield	Massachusetts

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Washington	National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH/CDC), The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR)

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Stress	Measures of feelings of stress among the female workers from validated questionnaire	4 year period
Primary	Job satisfaction	Measures of job satisfaction from validated questionnaire	4 year period
Primary	Social support	Measures of social support both in and out of work from validated questionnaire	4 year period
Primary	Work-related risks	Knowledge, awareness, and coping mechanisms for work-related risks from validated questionnaire	4 year period
Secondary	Retention in the trades	Measure of the number of women who remain in the trades	4 year period