The Use of Mentoring to Promote Well-being for Female SMART Members

Advancing Women in the Sheet Metal Workers' Trade: A Coordinated Mentoring Program to Promote Safety, Health, and Well-being

Women are highly underrepresented in the construction skilled trades. In addition to facing the industry's well-known physical risks, women are subjected to discrimination, harassment, and skills under-utilization. As a result, tradeswomen have increased risk for injury, stress-related health effects, and high attrition rates from apprenticeship programs, thus perpetuating their minority status. Mentoring is a well-established technique for learning technical and personal navigation skills in new or challenging social environments. The investigators propose development and dissemination of a mentorship program through local unions of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), and evaluating its success in reducing women's injury and work stress, while improving retention.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Mental Stress; Work Related Stress; Work-related Injury; Work-Related Condition; Harassment, Non-Sexual; Harassment, Sexual; Bullying, Workplace
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Mentoring program

Detailed Description

Journey-level workers will be trained on effective mentoring techniques, and matched to approximately 100 women apprentices within participating local unions. Mentees will be followed for two years within the mentorship program, with another 100 women apprentices in locals not receiving the mentorship training similarly followed as controls. The impact of participation in mentoring programs will be measured through apprentices' experience of stress, coping mechanisms, safety climate, and retention in the apprenticeship programs. Specifically, the investigators propose to:

Aim 1: Develop a mentorship training program for journey-level sheet metal workers to assist women apprentices in navigating the challenges faced by women in trades

Aim 2: Disseminate the training and assist locals in developing effective mentorship programs

Aim 3: Evaluate the effectiveness of the mentoring programs specified in Aims 1 and 2

Aim 4: Disseminate the best practices for supporting women apprentices in the skilled trades.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 96
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Arizona
    • Phoenix, Arizona, United States, 85034
      • Phoenix Area Local 359
  • California
    • Glendora, California, United States, 91740
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 105
    • San Jose, California, United States, 95131
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 104
  • Colorado
    • Denver, Colorado, United States, 80211
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 9
  • Georgia
    • Atlanta, Georgia, United States, 30315
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 85
  • Hawaii
    • Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, 96817
      • Hawaii Sheet Metal Workers Local 293
  • Illinois
    • Hillside, Illinois, United States, 60162
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 73
  • Indiana
    • Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, 46205
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 20
  • Massachusetts
    • Dorchester, Massachusetts, United States, 02124
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 17
    • Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, 01104
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 63
  • Minnesota
    • Maplewood, Minnesota, United States, 55109
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 10
  • Missouri
    • St Louis, Missouri, United States, 63103
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 36
  • New Mexico
    • Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, 87106
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 49
  • New York
    • New York, New York, United States, 10013
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 28
  • Ohio
    • Columbus, Ohio, United States, 43219
      • Columbus Sheet Metal Workers Apprenticeship
  • Oregon
    • Portland, Oregon, United States, 97230
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 16
  • Pennsylvania
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19147
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 19
  • Texas
    • San Antonio, Texas, United States, 78216
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local 67
  • Washington
    • Everett, Washington, United States, 98204
      • Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 66

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 21 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• All mentors must be journey-level sheet metal workers that are members of the SMART (International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers) Union. All mentees and control apprentices must be apprentice-level sheet metal workers that are members of the SMART Union, and identify as woman.

Exclusion Criteria:

• No exclusions will be made on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, age, disability or religion for mentors, mentees, and control apprentices. No exclusions will be made on the basis of gender for mentors. For mentees and control apprentices, those that do not identify as a woman will be excluded.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Mentees; This arm consists of apprentice-level, female-identifying construction workers who will receive active mentorship (the intervention) for two years from trained journey-level mentors.	Behavioral: Mentoring program; Apprentice-level female construction workers will be assigned to a mentor who has gone through a rigorous mentorship training. Participants will be asked to meet with a mentor at least 4 times/year in person to discuss the challenges of being a female in construction, learn coping mechanisms, and otherwise discuss the unique challenges of the job environment.
No Intervention: Control Apprentices; This arm consists of apprentice-level, female-identifying construction workers who will not receive mentorship.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Stress	Measures of feelings of stress among the female workers from the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) where higher scores indicate a worse outcome. Minimum value is 0 and maximum value is 40.	1 year period
Job Satisfaction	Measures of job satisfaction from the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) where higher scores indicate higher job satisfaction. Minimum value is 1 and maximum value is 6.	1 year period
Social Support	Measures of social support both in and out of work from the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) Social Support Survey. Higher scores indicate greater feelings of social support. Minimum value of 1 and maximum value of 5.	1 year period

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Retention in the trades	Measure of the number of women who remain in the trades	4 year period

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Washington
• Collaborators: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH/CDC); The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Marissa G Baker, PhD, University of Washington; Study Director: Lily M Monsey, BA, University of Washington

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 1, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 1, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): December 31, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 28, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 28, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): January 30, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): September 16, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 27, 2025
• Last Verified: August 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Occupational Diseases; Behavior; Social Behavior; Sexual Behavior; Occupational Stress; Stress, Psychological; Harassment, Non-Sexual; Sexual Harassment
• Other Study ID Numbers: STUDY00009270; U60OH009762-11 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No