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Press announcement

Workplace Options and Future Care Named SAFETY4SEA Finalists for Joint Effort to Support Mariners’ Emotional Health

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Employee wellbeing provider Workplace Options (WPO) and Future Care, an International SOS company, have been recognised as finalists for the SAFETY4SEA Initiative Award. SAFETY4SEA, the world’s leading source of news and insight on the shipping industry hosts the annual awards ceremony in part to foster excellence and share best practices across the maritime industry.

SAFETY4SEA Awards Workplace Options and Future Care

Workplace Options and Future Care were nominated for their joint effort to improve seafarers’ access to emotional health support. In many cases, crew members struggling with emotional health issues must wait to dock at port before receiving professional support. WPO and Future Care partnered together to develop a resource that connects mariners with professional counsellors via telephone while on ship, rather than having to wait weeks, sometimes months, to dock. This was especially critical in 2020 as ports closed due to COVID-19, leaving hundreds of thousands of mariners stranded at sea.

“Because WPO and Future Care already had the infrastructure in place, we were able to quickly ramp up our service to respond to the increased needs that followed as COVID-19 spread around the globe,” shares Alan King, President and CEO of Workplace Options. “Our counsellors did a tremendous job helping crew members manage their fears and anxieties during a very difficult time.”

Christina DeSimone, Future Care Founder and CEO adds that 

“The pandemic has continued to demonstrate the importance of emotional support for our mariners and at Future Care we have seen all-time high case numbers, relating to mental health. By collaborating with Workplace Options over the past 3 years we have been able to build tailored global solutions for ship operators that unite our telemedical capabilities and maritime insight with the expertise of Workplace Options in the field of structured counselling and therapy.”

As part of the nomination, two case studies were shared to demonstrate the level of care WPO and Future Care were able to provide. Those case studies are available to view by clicking here.

In total, five nominations were shortlisted for the SAFETY4SEA Innovation Award. The process to determine the final winner is a combination of voting that is open to the general public, as well as voting by an industry panel. General voting is open to the public now through Friday, 10 September. The winner will be named during the SAFETY4SEA Virtual Awards Ceremony on 20 October, 2021.


About Workplace Options
Workplace Options helps employees balance their work, family, and personal needs to become healthier, happier, and more productive, both personally and professionally. The company’s world-class employee support, effectiveness, and wellbeing services provide information, resources, referrals, and consultation on a variety of issues ranging from dependent care and stress management to clinical services and wellness programs.

Drawing from an international network of credentialed providers and professionals, Workplace Options is the world’s largest integrated employee support and work-life services provider. Service centres in the U.S., Canada, UK, Ireland, Portugal, France, Belgium, UAE, Singapore, Japan, China, India, and Indonesia support more than 70 million employees across 116,000 organizations and more than 200 countries and territories.

About Future Care
Future Care is an international medical management, cost containment, and telemedical service provider exclusively to the maritime industry, serving shipowners and P&I Clubs in fulfilling the medical needs of seafarers, aboard ship and on land. The Company was founded in 1998 by CEO and President Christina DeSimone, who brought her unique brand of medical case management for land-based employees directly to shipowners and ship managers, to better manage the medical care of their crews. Future Care has since continued to grow rapidly and fills a need in the maritime community for expert management of seafarers’ medical treatment and services around the globe.

Find out more at https://futurecareinc.com/