CAP PSP
Helping you meet your regulatory requirements
By 2020, all European AOCs are required to provide their pilots with access to peer support programmes.
Launching mid 2019 with opportunities to JOIN NOW
Our programme is designed for business aviators, irrespective of location, size, aircraft type or business model.
Managed by the world experts in pilot mental health
The Centre for Aviation Psychology
offers the governance, resources and economies of scale typically enjoyed by larger AOCs.
Meeting the need for BizAv
EASA recommend that AOCs provide their pilots with access to a confidential support programme.
The implication for BizAv AOCs is that while they have until the Summer of 2020 to make this provision, the availability of such programmes, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. Germany), is largely non-existent for this sector of aviation.
Some operators might have the economies of scale to create their own programmes, however, smaller operators – and especially those in the BizAv sector – are better suited to joining a network of operators sharing resources and costs.
The CAP Peer Support Programme is designed specifically to meet this need.
Aedrian Bekker. Director of Organisational Solutions, CAP. Speaking to the RAes about the benefits and challenges facing PSPs.
Why PSPs work
Like many professionals, pilots can be reluctant to ask for help for their mental well being. Social stigma, career implications, the perception that mental health professionals don't understand the particular pressures of BizAv flight crew and the myth that all pilots are made of the 'right stuff' contribute to this reluctance.
It turns out of course, that pilots are human beings too. Providing peer support simply makes it much easier to for pilots to ask for help. Not just any help - but the support of a trained peer who knows exactly what it's like to be a pilot and the lifestyle and operational challenges this involves.
In conjunction with other resources an AOC may offer (e.g. employee assistance programmes, health insurance), PSPs are a particularly cost effective way of supporting pilots who might not otherwise seek help, but who may be desperately needing it.
Our experience is that most AOCs see the value of a well-run PSP in managing what is in part, a known risk.
What we provide is the confidentiality, independence, clinical governance and viable scale that pose a particular challenge for many BizAv operators.
The CAP PSP
The CAP PSP will consist of a network of pilot peer volunteers throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The peers will be selected from participating PSP members and will be trained to support BizAv pilots wherever they are, whatever they fly and whoever they work for.
Pilots from participating BizAv AOCs will have access to the trained peers via a website and the support provided on the telephone. Peers are supported and supervised by CAP’s (world leading) clinical aviation psychologists. The CAP PSP is based on the successful tailor-made PSPs that we run for multiple AOCs covering 10k+ pilots. The entire programme will be administered and governed to the highest standards of confidentiality and data security, with the ability to provide trend data (never individual) with participating AOCs.
We will be recruiting and training the peers in the Spring of 2019 and launching the PSP in the summer.
Join us now to be a founder member, receive preferential rates and help others by leading the way.
British Airways was the first PSP for a commercial AOC to be managed by CAP.