Osaka  - the 2024 IPAAC Conference Report

Why Japan?

The reasons for taking IPAAC to Japan were many: those who attended the 2022 IPPAC conference in London will never forget the impact the contingent from JAL and ANA had when they presented their Peer Support Programme (PSP), featuring its brilliantly innovative salon staffed by Peers who are actually paid to be there by the company. It seemed wholly appropriate to honour the amazing work they have done in the field by taking IPAAC to the Far East.

 

The additional benefit of holding the conference there was to act as a catalyst for growth of peer support in the region. Japan is a long way to travel from the US and Europe, and the accompanying brutal time zone change gave all of us new respect for any Japanese or Australasian representative attending any international meeting. The distance inevitably meant that attendance from US and European delegates was down, but this was more than compensated for by a very healthy attendance from many airlines and organisations from Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and even Fiji.

 

The Osaka 2024 conference was graced by the official welcome and opening by Mr Daisuke Umezawa (Director of Flight Standards Division, JCAB) and Capt Munekazu Tachibana (SVP Corporate Safety & Security, JAL). That two such senior officials came to IPAAC illustrated how important it was to them that we were in Japan, and we were deeply honoured.

 

 

Not just pilots

IPAAC started life as the International Pilot Peer Assist Coalition in 2018, establishing the very important principle of open information and experience sharing to identify best practices. However, a greater understanding of how effective a well organised programme using trained and skilled peers could be in helping pilots self-refer to get help with their mental health issues, made it apparent that such knowledge must equally apply to all safety-critical personnel in aviation.

 

The 2023 conference held in Cologne was the first time IPPAC had presentations from Air Traffic Controllers and Aircraft Mechanics, and consequently we rebranded as the International Peer Assist Aviation Coalition (IPAAC). The Osaka 2024 conference was our first attempt at much deeper integration with ATCOs, Flight Attendants and Mechanics and their existing peer support programmes, with dedicated breakout sessions for each area.

 

This was also the first time to our knowledge that different PSPs from around the world in these areas had come together in the same place. The energy and buzz from bringing all this expertise together with a common goal is the IPAAC magic, and it was there in abundance in Osaka. We almost certainly missed a lot of tricks in the way the agenda was set up, but perfection is rarely achieved first time and we learnt many lessons which we will take into the 2025 conference in Montreal. What perhaps we had under-estimated was the desire of different groups to learn from each other – intra-learning as opposed to inter-learning? – which we will build on next year.

 

So what was discussed in Osaka?

A lot! We’ve always considered that there is no point gathering together the experts in the world from all the different disciplines of peer support and not hear what they have to say. Hence 50% of the Osaka conference took the form of breakout sessions or workshops, where the smaller groups could do much deeper dives into the relevant topics. The output from the workshops were presented to the plenary conference on the last day, which was a tough ask of the facilitators to put together presentations of a whole load of new knowledge and information overnight, but they did a superb job.

 

The language of safety

The 50% of plenary presentations were around topics which it was felt were of wider interest to delegates. The primary focus of peer support work must always be on the individual and how they can best be supported through their difficulties, either whilst at work or getting them back to work safely and healthily as soon as possible. The critical concept here is safety. If the discussions about PSPs only revolve around the best headspace apps and breathing techniques, then industry interest in the subject will rapidly wane. 

 

Hence the morning of Day 1 was devoted to reframing the language of peer support into that of safety. A stark reminder of the value of effective peer support was given by representatives from JAL, ALPA- Japan and JFATC who discussed the impact of the Haneda crash of 2nd January 2023. Whilst Critical Incident Support is a branch of peer support, it is not an area IPAAC focusses on, given the mature and successful ICISF structure. However, the new JAL PSP was brought into action to cover this incident. Aside from the numbers of JAL pilots who contacted their PSP in the days after the incident just to talk, what was particularly striking was the need to provide effective support to the Air Traffic Controllers on the day who had to carry on controlling aircraft into the airport having witnessed such a horrific crash.

 

The next presentation was from Dr Billy Hoffman, the Assistant Professor of Aviation at the University of North Dakota. Billy is a leading academic in the field of peer support and was the author of the famous paper which revealed the 56.1%  figure of commercial pilots in the US exhibiting healthcare avoidance behaviour. Billy’s presentation focussed on firstly a proposed new regulatory framework to act as a counter to this avoidance behaviour, and also how mental wellbeing and performance can be woven into the bowtie threat error management model. This is the standard language of safety in the industry, and one we must follow if we are to gain any traction in the SMS world. Check out his presentation on the IPAAC website for the details.

 

Having demonstrated the theory of how a new model of Regulation can work to encourage self-referral of mental health issues, Dr Kate Manderson from CASA and Dr Tim Sprott from NZ CAA demonstrated how this can work in practice. They have developed the Safe Haven concept, whereby specially trained (D)AMEs operate at arm’s length from the Regulator and only refer the most serious cases back to CASA or NZ CAA. The key from the Regulators’ point of view is trusting the (D)AMEs that they can make the appropriate decisions to keep the pilot flying wherever possible.

 

The Safe Haven is a collaborative effort between the various stakeholders, and the morning finished with a panel discussion moderated by FO Carrie Braun from ALPA-I highlighting three other collaborative projects which have pushed forwards the boundaries of knowledge and operation of PSPs. Dr Quay Snyder talked about the seismic Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) which produced a paper with 22 recommendations for improving the Regulatory environment in the US after only 3 months of intense work between multiple stakeholders.

 

Dr Cristian Panait described the EASA MESAFE project (MEntal health for aviation SAFEty) which has concluded its mammoth 2 year project and over 700 pages of recommendations for AMEs to improve their knowledge of mental health issues which affect pilots. It came as quite a shock to delegates to realise that all AMEs don’t know everything about everything!

 

Finally, Dr Chun Hon Chong from the Singapore CAAS described the unique Tripartite Agreement signed in March 2023 between the major operators in Singapore, the CAAS and the pilot and air traffic unions which focussed on four main pillars: Education, Peer Support, Intervention and Collaborative Programmes.

 

Carrie then asked the panellists a number of questions highlighting the positive effects that a collaborative approach can have to addressing the complex field of mental health and wellbeing amongst what can sometimes be a sceptical audience. The question of the expert panellists on how they saw the field of peer support evolving over the next 5 years was particularly illuminating.

 

The afternoon session saw delegates break out into individual sessions for the key areas of pilots, air traffic controllers, flight attendants, mechanics, and professional support & providers. The many medical Regulatory heads present in Osaka held a closed meeting to share notes on an international level on the various topics of medical aviation regulation. By having a dedicated space available to the speciality groups, it allowed for more personal debate and discussion of the peer support issues relevant to those areas.

 

Day 2 consisted of six workshops, three in the morning and three in the afternoon, held in parallel which allowed for a really deep dive into key peer support topics. These were themed around the journey of a safety-sensitive personnel in aviation who is experiencing difficulties and needs help. So, the morning workshops were:

 

1. I’m struggling – what help is there? (Promotion and Marketing of a PSP)

2. Does the PSP work for me as an individual? (Diversity in Peer Support)

3. Will I receive quality support from the programme? (Peer skills and training)

 

The afternoon workshops were:

 

1. What does the regulatory landscape look like if I ask for help? (Regulators and PSPs)

2. When I get back into the workplace, how am I better prepared for the same thing happening again? (Resilience)

3. How to set up a PSP from Ground Zero (this was aimed at those delegates with little or no experience of peer support, with thanks to Dr Quay Snyder and Capt Keith Frank for the facilitation)

 

Day 3 saw presentations from the facilitators of the first 5 workshops from Day 2, which meant some rapid Powerpoint skills demonstrated in a short period of time. Particularly given that the previous evening was taken up by the hugely enjoyable gala dinner, featuring a demonstration of samurai skills that involved audience participation. No Regulators were hurt in the making of the evening, promise!

 

Particular thanks go to FO Chris Arnold from ALPA-I for the presentation on marketing and Promotion of a PSP, to Professor Rob Bor for his Diversity in PSP thoughts, to Capt Rodney Hall and SFO Mark McMahon for gathering together the wisdom of the workshop on Peer skills, to Dr Kate Manderson for her usual searing insight into the key Regulatory issues of peer support, and to Capt Laurie Shaw and the Air Services Australia team for the presentation on Resilience.

 

The conference finished with the IPAAC Chair Dave Fielding outlining the Big Picture of where we are with peer support, highlighting the dangers of the subject fading from operators’ view as other subject such as AI and geopolitical uncertainty take their attention. The solution, he argued, is to demonstrate a clear link between mental health & wellbeing and safety performance. Operators should be weaving mental health & wellbeing into their Safety Management Systems, utilising the principles of data gathering via accident investigation combined with suitably anonymised and aggregated data from Peer Support Programmes to lead to Evidence Based Training on Resilience techniques that prevent mental health issues turning into something more serious. 

 

This very much laid the foundation for 2025 – much work to do! Delegates left Osaka full of ideas, experience and motivation which should feed back into their own programmes and drive improvement. The IPAAC governance bodies have taken back the learning from the conference to drive the programme for 2025, all culminating in the annual conference in November, which this year will be in Montreal from the 11-13thNovember, with a pre-conference on the 10th. Full details will be announced on the website as soon as we’ve signed the contracts!