Adjustment to injury counselling
Your mental health is a vital part of your recovery and rehabilitation. If you’re finding things hard, WorkCover can help you with Adjustment to Injury Counselling as further support.
Why might I need counselling?
Experiencing a work-related injury or illness can be difficult, or in some cases even traumatic. You might not be coping with your injury or illness or adjusting to lifestyle changes.
Your employer, WorkCover, your health provider, or a family member could have noticed that you’re having trouble.
Feeling like this is normal in some cases, but it's important that it’s recognised so that proper support can be offered.
What is Adjustment to Injury Counselling (ATIC)?
Adjustment to Injury Counselling involves talking with a provider such as:
- a psychologist
- a Rehabilitation Counsellor
- a social worker with a tertiary degree in social work.
The purpose of Adjustment to Injury Counselling is to help you understand your injury better and to teach you coping strategies.
This is with the end goal of getting you back to work and normal life.
How do I know if I need counselling?
You might need counselling support if you're:
- very pain focused
- experiencing anxiety or mood swings
- not wanting to leave your home or are not taking part in usual activities
- feeling you don’t have a support network
- confused or not understanding information
- having flashbacks or nightmares
- scared of treatment or surgery that has been suggested or approved.
For more information on Adjustment to Injury Counselling, please speak to your contact at WorkCover Queensland.
Scott Mifsud: My name's Scott Mifsud. I was born in Innisfail and I’ve been at Daradgee Welding Works for approximately the last eight and a half years.
Jason Sapuppo: We fabricate agricultural equipment for the banana industry. It's a family owned business which has been running for about 30 years
Scott Mifsud: I was cleaning a shaft in the lathe, it's something I'd done hundreds of times before and, split second, my hand got dragged into the machine and I just remember looking down at my hand and yelling and I could see that my thumb was gone. And I looked down into the machine, I could actually see my thumb sitting at the bottom of the machine. I was taken into the hospital and they sewed a few arteries up that were in the thumb, that were bleeding quite a bit. And when I got to Cairns they sent me straight to Brisbane and they operated through the night to attach the thumb back on. Everything was approved straight away as far as I know and Kristy's been really good with everything.
Kristy Mitchell: Scott's just been unreal the whole time. Such a pleasure to look after. Just really motivated to get back to work and with his recovery and I just love how he's used all the tools given to him to help him through every phase of his journey.
Scott Mifsud: In hospital I felt really like down and I didn't want to see anyone. This is probably after a couple of weeks, I suppose.
Kristy Mitchell: He knew that he needed a bit of help to talk to someone other than his wife. So he really took advantage of adjustment to injury and had a really good psychologist that worked with us to get him that treatment that he needed.
Scott Mifsud: In Brisbane they had got me to see someone there and it's just good to have someone else to talk to about things, just to have someone else's perspective on things and given me tools I suppose, to cope with how I was feeling at the time. I ended up getting one down here in Innisfail too. So yeah, they've been really helpful with that. I wanted to just get back to some normality about things, like go back to work full time and I sort of, yeah, fit right into the work they do here.
Jason Sapuppo: You don't want to see anybody go through that sort of situation. I’ve known Scott for a long time, little town, you know everybody. I class him as a mate and a friend and it was just great having him here just to be able to walk around and watch what people are doing and give them advice. So he was doing a bit of quoting for me and he's sort of good with all that stuff as well as being a good tradesman. The fact that it was, it was an easy process for him to access through WorkCover it just made life easy for us. And yeah, it's great, it’s great to have him back.