With a friendship spanning more than 30 years, ADF and Singapore Armed Forces personnel have continued to strengthen their connection and interoperability during a two-day Work Health and Safety (WHS) workshop as part of Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2024.
The safety and wellbeing of personnel is a combined priority for the two nations, and the workshop was an example of that commitment.
Both nations facilitated meaningful exchanges focused on sharing lessons, ideas and opportunities for better WHS practices. The workshop highlighted the extent of commonality in values, systems and outcomes, while also identifying opportunities for greater interoperability.
Director of ADF Headquarters WHS and Culture Rochelle von Berger provided a presentation highlighting the legal and strategic context of the ADF's WHS framework.
"The two-day workshop was an opportunity to understand the strategic context both our militaries operate in," Ms von Berger said.
"Translating that into how we exercise and operate together to improve the health, safety and wellbeing outcomes of our people was key; particularly as we focus on delivering our collective objectives throughout the Indo-Pacific region."
Topics discussed ranged from proactively managing heat-related injuries, vehicle incidents, incident investigation and management, psychosocial hazards and emerging issues such as mild traumatic brain injury.
A key theme underpinning all discussion topics though was the role for data innovation to improve focused interventions.
Head of Army Safety Colonel Brendan Robinson said: "Data is key to both understanding and adapting to real-time risk being realised on the ground and [to] help predict future risk."
The workshop allowed both nations to continue strengthening their partnership in the pursuit of safety and security for all personnel.
