The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), organised on 29-30 September 2026 a Campaign Kick-off meeting in Bilbao Together for Mental Health at Work.
More than 50 delegates from EU-Member States attended the meeting. EfVET was represented by its President Professor Joachim James Calleja who was also one of the keynote panellists at the opening session of the seminar.
Professor Calleja spoke about the theme Together for mental health at work from the vocational education perspective stressing the need for young people, particularly apprentices, to be trained on how to stay healthy, resilient and connected in workplaces. He also referred to the importance of training for mental health for trainers and mentors of apprentices making work-based learning a genuine partnership between employers, learners and VET institutions. VET can be the bridge between the workplace and the employers offering opportunities for on-the-job training for workers and learners. Professor Calleja said, “stress, fatigue, excessive workload, poor organisation, harassment or lack of control can interact with physical risks. It is important that places of work create positive environments in which productivity and well-being compliment each other…it is through training that VET can support Companies”.
Professor Calleja is also Head of the European Vocational Academy currently providing back-to-back training programmes in occupational health and safety to many Maltese and foreign workers in Malta particularly those working in the construction industry.
Other keynote speakers at the meeting represented the Enterprise Europe Network as well as the European workers’, employers’, governments and the Commission’s perspectives. William Cockburn Salazar, Director of EU-OSHA opened the meeting recalling the two-year preparation of EU-OSHA of this Europe-wide campaign to raise awareness of the importance of mental health in all workplaces. Workshop sessions focused on how to organise high-impact national campaigns, best practices for using the campaign’s communication tools and on building strong partnerships and stakeholder networks at national and EU-level.