MEET OUR OPENING KEYNOTE: MITCH WALLIS
Real Conversations: The New Safety Standard
We could not be more excited to welcome Mitch Wallis to Chicago as the opening keynote speaker for the 6th Annual Construction Mental Health & Wellbeing Conference.
Drawing from his Real Conversations® framework and five-step ELSA.B™ model -- Engage, Listen, Safety, Action, Boundaries -- Mitch will challenge us to think about human connection differently:
Because connection isn’t just a “soft skill.”
Connection is a safety system.
WHY MITCH? WHY CONSTRUCTION? WHY NOW?
Mitch brings a rare combination of science, lived experience, powerful storytelling and immediately usable skills.
He holds a Master’s in Psychology from Columbia University and has trained more than 10,000 people across four continents, including work with global construction company Lendlease.
He also brings his own lived experience of more than 20 years with anxiety, OCD, depression and suicidal intensity and a deeply personal understanding of the difference people can make when they know how to truly show up.
As founder of the suicide prevention movement Heart On My Sleeve, Mitch has built his work around one deceptively simple idea:
We need more humans who know what to do when another human is hurting.
And he knows how to connect that idea to stoic, practical, hands-on workforces.
NOT JUST INSPIRATIONAL. TACTICAL.
This won’t be a keynote where people leave moved for an hour and unsure what to do.
Mitch will use raw storytelling, live demonstrations, audience practice and specific language people can use.
Attendees will learn how to:
Get past the automatic “I’m good”
Listen without immediately trying to fix
Ask directly about suicide when they are concerned
Help someone move toward action without taking over
Recognize the influence leaders have on psychological safety
Set boundaries so caring for others remains sustainable
Participants will leave with a simple framework they can take back to the jobsite, trailer, office, union hall and leadership table the very next day.
If this industry can engineer out falls, it can engineer in connection.
GET TO KNOW MITCH BEFORE CHICAGO
I recently interviewed Mitch on our Hope Illuminated podcast, and we went deep into what makes a conversation genuinely helpful.
We talked about the mistakes even caring people make, why “Are you okay?” is only the beginning, how lived experience can help rather than hijack a conversation, and what it means to move toward another person’s pain instead of away from it.
It was one of those conversations that changed me, too.
Listen here:
BUILDING NEW HORIZONS
The 6th Annual Construction Mental Health & Wellbeing Conference brings together construction leaders, safety professionals, labor, contractors, researchers, peer supporters and people with lived experience who are asking:
What comes next?
Mitch is going to help us open that conversation.
We hope you’ll be in the room.
6th Annual Construction Mental Health & Wellbeing Conference
Chicago | February 22–25, 2027 | www.ConstructionMentalHealth.org
Building New Horizons: Safer Sites, Stronger People, Healthier Organizations
See you there!
Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas
Construction Working Minds