Welcome to the Oscar Kilo, National Police Wellbeing Service bulletin covering November and December 2022.
Read on to find out what we have been up to and what to expect from us in the coming weeks.
What we’ve been up to
Launch of our new 'Together against assaults' campaign
Police officers and staff face confrontation and aggression on a regular basis, particularly those serving in front line roles, but being physically assaulted is not something we should accept as part of the job. This campaign has been developed to be used by forces locally to educate officers and staff and encourage them to report assaults.
Through this new Op Hampshire campaign, we want to encourage a ‘togetherness mentality’ to improve the way assaults are understood, talked about and reported. We want officers and staff to know they are not on their own. Operation Hampshire is here to help. Together is stronger.
The main concept centres around a short film, voiced over by former police officer and television presenter Rav Wilding, wrapped around with key messages and supporting resources to encourage a clearer understanding of Operation Hampshire, the impact of assaults and to encourage reporting.
Access the film and resources to use this campaign in your force
Together against assaults campaign
Nutrition for wellbeing
In November we launched our brand-new nutrition for wellbeing programme with nutritionist and ex police officer Anna Earl.
We've a whole page dedicated to nutrition, where you will find details on upcoming webinars, links to resources and where we will be building up our other supporting materials and over the coming months, we will be sharing some great nutritional advice, to help rebalance your energy and combat fatigue.
Our first nutrition webinar: Food for energy, took place on 5 December and is now available on our website to watch, and our next webinar on 9 Jan: What, when and how to eat is now open for registration.
Series three of 'Keeping the Peace' podcasts released
If you have not already, please check out our podcast style interviews.
In November we published our third series, this time Alexis from Fortis Therapy has interviewed some of the key members of the National Police Wellbeing Service Team. You can listen to them and our previous two series using the button below.
Training update
In November 2022 NPWS delivered the following courses:
- Seven supervisor wellbeing courses - three forces with 63 attendees
- Four demobilising and defusing courses - five forces with 45 attendees
- One chief officer CPOSA peer support training - eight attendees
- Three peer support courses - One force, one staff association and NPWS team, 35 attendees
In total 151 officers and staff attended training this month through NPWS.
Courses are currently scheduled through to 31st March 2023 and details are available on the Oscar Kilo website on an ongoing basis.
Wellbeing vans update
The Outreach Service continued to experience a high level of demand throughout November working to support forces across England and Wales.
Our partners this month included Bedfordshire, Northumbria, Merseyside, Norfolk, Suffolk, West Yorkshire and British Transport Police (BTP). There was also a visit to support the ‘Women’s Inclusive Network’ event in Leicestershire – a massive event with host of valuable contacts. The team also hosted the BTP Federation who wanted to familiarise themselves with the services on offer.
There were some unplanned maintenance issues, but the team managed to keep the wheels rolling and the effect on service wasn’t noticed. As ever, there was great support from Lancashire vehicle fleet.
There are still a few slots available for December and January if you think we can help – get in touch
If you are interested in booking a van or just wish to talk about how we would be able to support you with one of our vans then please make contact by emailing us here or visit the van booking page
OK9 update
During November our OK9 dogs made visits which saw them interacting with over 3,300 officers and staff.
Over 50 per cent of these deployment were general visit to officers and staff to improve morale and general wellbeing and 18 percent were carried out at local and national events and roadshows.
People come from far and wide when they know the wellbeing dogs are there - especially our husky - it is amazing to see the reaction of officers and staff when they see the dog.
Here's some of the feedback:
With my OK9 dog we met lots of people through the Investigator's Week of Action and started many positive conversations with both officers and staff.
Officers were really excited to have the dogs visit, a well-earned break from the stresses of front-line duties.
During a two-day event we interacted with about 70 - 80 people as they were drawn to the Oscar Kilo stand to visit the dogs and talk about mental health and physical support offered locally and via Oscar Kilo.
Emergency Services Mental Health Symposium
On the 23 - 24 November we were at the Emergency Services Mental Health Symposium at Silverstone race circuit.
The event, which followed on from the hugely successful inaugural symposium hosted last year by The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, showcased the progress that has been made one year on from when the Chief Officers of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, National Fire Chiefs Councils, Association of Ambulance Chief Executives and HM Coastguard all signed the Mental Health at Work Commitment for the emergency services and made a public pledge to address the mental health and wellbeing of their respective workforces.
We had the opportunity to showcase some of the work we have been doing around sleep and fatigue, with Dr Sophie Bostock presenting about our 'Better Sleep' programme, and Anna Earl introducing our brand new 'Nutrition for Wellbeing' programme.
Our service director Andy Rhodes took to the stage to discuss the work we are doing to support new recruits and some of our OK9 dogs and their handlers where on hand to meet delegates.
This is now an annual event and we will be heavily involved in developing the content for the 2023 symposium.
Service improvement and stress reduction programme
On Wednesday 30 November, our Service Director, Andy Rhodes and programme lead, Liz Mead took part in a WeCops chat about our new service improvement and stress reduction (SISR) programme. You can find out more about the programme here.
What's coming in the next month
Launch of 'Purpose' film and awareness package
On 14 December at 1pm we will be holding a special online event to officially launch our brand-new short film and awareness package entitled; ‘Purpose’.
This film is intended to help people watching think about what’s going on in their own lives and hopefully help them to spot any warning signs early, because quite often we will normalise these things and don’t see that cumulatively, they are starting to have an impact on us.
The event is aimed at those working within policing who will be able to use this film and associated roll out package to cascade this in their police forces.
Find out more about the package and register for the event below.
Register for 'Purpose' launch
What, when and how to eat: Nutrition for wellbeing webinar
This is the second in our new 'Feed your body clock' series and takes place on Monday 9 January 2023 at 11am. In this webinar nutritionist Anna Earl will discuss how what we eat at what time can have an impact on our wellbeing.
If you want to know more about our work around nutrition and access the first webinar visit our 'Nutrition for Wellbeing' programme page.
Oscar Kilo awards
We will be opening the Oscar Kilo awards for entries on 5th January 2023.
If there is a piece of work or project that you are proud of and you feel has made a difference to the wellbeing of your officers and staff in 2022, please consider entering our awards.
You can find out more and see our previous winners on our awards page.
We would just like to wish you all a happy Christmas and we look forward to working together and supporting you throughout 2023.
