A new interview in the EFPA News Magazine informs about the progress of the H-WORK project and provide insights into the role of the different partners of the consortium. EFPA is one of the 14 partners of the H-WORK project. This time, Bruna Zani interviewed Francisco Javier García González, Territorial Director of Valora Prevencion.
1. Can you present us your team and the role of the members in the H-Work Project?
The intervention of both Valora Prevención and the other partners is carried out throughout the Project collaborating in all phases of the project, either by broadcasting news regarding the Project on social networks, seminars or conferences, or by writing articles of interest related to the Project, transferring relevant information to other participants, etc..
We have currently begun the WP6, consists on the devolopment of an innovative platform to integrate the toolkits (HAT: H-work Assessment Toolkit; HIT: H-work Interventions Toolkit; HET: H-work Evaluation Toolkit) the H-Work benchmarking calculator (BC) and the H-Work Decision support system (DSS).
2. What is your role within the project?
I am the main intermediary between the Project and Valora Prevención to transfer the requirements of the Project internally and to be able to find in this way the best possible collaboration and with the most appropriate experts.
3. Can you present us your team?
Mª Jose Gisbert, is a psychologist, OSH practitioner and expert in carrying out psychosocial factor assessments in companies
Fausto Julia, is a training engineer, OSH practitioner and internal process manager within Valora Prevention, as well as a member of the Management Committee for Valora Prevention
Nathalie Garcia, is a clinical psychologist, working in private practice ITAE/Valora, conducting psychotherapy and assessment of private clients, users of work insurances and companies and working as Trainer for different companies in Mental Health related topics.
In my case, Francisco García, engineer and OSH practitioner. Currently responsible for technical, medical and nurse work teams and contact between large clients and value prevention.
4. What is the impact of COVID on the work of your organization for the H-Work project?
The pandemic situation has greatly affected our work. In Spain it was legally established that companies like ours had to actively participate in management. On the one hand we advise all our client companies on what are the best measures to implement within their facilities to prevent infections. ‘We are also trained to provide covid training to client companies and very importantly fear we have the obligation to collaborate with health authorities and in particular, we have been entrusted with work to track close contacts within the work environment and actively collaborate with public administrations in the detection of new cases by conducting diagnostic tests.
Currently it seems that the tendency is to review which measures are going to be implemented more permanently given the apparent final situation of the pandemic.
5. What has your team accomplished in the project so far?
So far we have given transfer of information on legislation and study methods at the Spanish level to other colleagues, we have collaborated in the diffusion of the Project and we have written some articles of interest.
6. What are you currently working on and what are the next steps?
We are currently collecting ideas to be able to complete the initial plan of exploitation of WP6 to be able to identify among others the target audience that could become interested in the exploitation of the Platform, the sustainability of the Project beyond the completion of the same, how to exploit the results…
In addition, it is also being reviewed that similar proposals of platforms currently exist and fear that begin to specify what will be the algorithm that is used for the DSS.
7. What are currently the main obstacles for your work and for the project in general?
In our case the main pitfall is that our usual activity differs from research environments (such as that developed by universities and public and private institutions) and sometimes it is not easy to quickly understand the procedures and ways of working, especially in an international environment since usually our Work is developed at the national level and always with client companies where economic remuneration prevails for the provision of a service established and regulated by Spanish Laws, from which we can little deviate.
8. What are your expectations regarding the outcomes of the project?
Valora Prevención is very interested in being able to be part of such an ambitious European Project and to have very high level of partners, as this brings us constant learning. It will be very interesting to have new tools resulting from research to promote mental health within organizations, especially after the situation we are experiencing, especially in small businesses that always have more limited access to economic, personal and/or media resources that could help implement improvements in their workers.
9. How do you think your organization and EFPA can collaborate in the H-Work Project?
The participation of both organizations is quite coincidental over time. One of the branches of prevention in Spain is psychosociology, so we have psychologists within Valora Prevention who can perfectly fit the point of view when developing and promoting and reporting on the tools that the project will offer to improve the mental health of all Europeans.