The charitable arm of NSW insurer icare has awarded eight organisations a share in a $5 million funding pool, to support injured workers to overcome personal and social barriers to return to work.
The recipients of a share in the $5 million WorkUp funding are CoAct, Happy Paws Happy Hearts, Primary and Community Care, Rumpus, Settlement Services International, University of Newcastle, Uprise, and WithYouWithMe.
“We selected these eight organisations because they came to us with strong business cases based on evidence-based, innovative approaches that could be adapted for workers’ insurance to deliver real benefits for injured workers, employers, and the people of NSW,” said Barney Smith, icare Foundation general manager.
The fundees participated in an extensive co-design process with icare staff and best-in-class social impact specialists, to refine and develop their idea, accessing icare data and insights to better understand and test against real challenges faced by NSW injured workers.
Smith said the initiative addresses the need to explore improved support for the complex personal and social barriers injured workers who experienced prolonged unemployment must overcome in order to return to work.
“Social isolation and psychosocial issues can develop when people are away from their workplace for long periods of time,” Smith said. “More than 8,000 people were off work for longer than three months in 2018, according to our workers’ insurance claims. We have seen a steady increase in the proportion of workers’ insurance claims requiring 90 days or more off work over the past five years.”
