Welcome to the Oscar Kilo, National Police Wellbeing Service bulletin for June 2022.
Read on to find out what we have been up to and what to expect from us in July.
What we’ve done in June
National Response Policing week of action
We supported the National Response Policing week of action that took place in forces all around the country from the 13 – 20 June 2022
This week of action, in addition to celebrating the professionalism and courage of Response Officers, is also an opportunity to recognise the challenges facing Response Policing and consider the future development of a key role that sits at the heart of policing.
We supported the NPCC, College of Policing and the Police Federation, to deliver a range of initiatives, co-ordinated specifically to support, develop and recognise the role of Response Officers.
Our wellbeing vans and dogs were deployed across the UK, we offered a series of webinars around sleep, fatigue and resilience and promoted the week across our social media channels.
World Wellbeing Week
We took part in World Wellbeing Week – an awareness week to celebrate the many aspects of wellbeing, from meaningful, purposeful work to financial security, physical, mental and emotional health, social resilience and empathic corporate and civic leadership, community relations and care for the environment.
We ran a series of signposts on our social media channels to all the different areas of our work to raise awareness about what is on offer from the National Police Wellbeing Service.
Better Sleep Webinar
Together with Sleep Scientist Dr Sophie Bostock, on 16 June we held a brand new 'Better Sleep' webinar: Sleep and managing your body clock. During this webinar Sophie talked about coping strategies and looked at how to improve your sleep when working on shifts, balancing the demands of work and your family and how to adjust your body clock.
If you were unable to join this session or are interested in watching our previous webinars they are available from the blue drop down menu under 'Your Account' when you are logged in to our website.
Find out more about our Better Sleep Toolkit which also includes our four week sleep improvement course using the button below:
Training update
We delivered a full range of courses in June 2022, which was a busy month for the team.
- Three Demobilising and Defusing courses
- Three Peer Support courses
- Five Supervisor Wellbeing course
- One Post Incident Support course
- One Structured Interview course for 10 forces which 11 police officers and police staff attended
In total, that’s 139 police officers and police staff trained from 16 different forces.
Peer Support Webinar
On the 30 June 2022, our Peer Support Webinar was attended by 44 delegates from 15 forces. The webinar was very well received by all attendees and included, a Peer Support update from us and two excellent presentations from guest speakers. Rhian Hurst and Abby McEwan from GMP provided an insight into their Peer Support Scheme and Dr Esther Ingham from Merseyside delivered a presentation on self- care. The webinar was recorded and can be accessed using the link below:
What’s coming up in July
The Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games run from 28 July to 8 August. With around 3500 officers on shift each day we felt it was important to have a presence at this event, to offer support and guidance to anyone who needs it.
Six of our wellbeing vans will be at the games, they will start to arrive a few weeks before and will be travelling around to different key locations each day. The vans will be staffed by colleagues from West Midlands Police Wellbeing and Welfare department and their Staff Welfare Hubs team who will be on hand to talk to. They will also offer support and distribute information about the National Police Wellbeing Service and what we do.
Also attending will be some of our OK9 wellbeing and trauma support dogs and their handlers mainly from West Midlands and West Mercia Police.
Occupational health enhanced and advanced standards
Later this month we will be publishing the Occupational health enhanced and advanced standards. The standards are part of the next stage of a suite of measures, designed by the National Police Wellbeing Service, to promote and support wellbeing at work. They follow on from our foundation standards which many forces are already working towards.
There’s lots more work going on behind the scenes to develop the occupational health section of the website and we will be building the content over the next month.