South Wales Police are committed to supporting their officers and staff in their mental health, helping to end stigma and encourage an open environment for all. They recognise that line managers play a critical role in identifying the early signs of mental ill-health in their teams and want to ensure they are equipped 24/7 to access information and support to aid their colleagues.
The purpose of the toolkit is to be an accessible resource that links directly to help and support at any time day or night. The toolkit also outlines key information such as signs to look out for, questions for managers to ask themselves and advice on how to broach the subject with officers and staff.
How it works
Working with their occupational health department, they created a comprehensive document that pulled together all the available mental health support in force, along with advice and guidance from in house counsellors. The contents were inspired by the discussions and themes arising at their annual mental health masterclass, thereby ensuring they were supporting the issues of greatest concern to managers.
The toolkit was published as part of their interactive HR Toolkit that is available on their intranet, and was also circulated to health and wellbeing single points of contact and blue light mental health champions.
Such was the success of the toolkit, they have replicated the format for a number of other documents such as the covid toolkit for managers and wellbeing pack for front line officers, in support of the NPCC/OK week of action. These are all saved within their wellbeing portal and they encourage officers and staff to ensure they download a copy to be saved at an accessible location on their shared drives. Please note, the links within the toolkits provided may not be accessible to those outside of South Wales Police as a number of source documents are embedded in our intranet.
Top tips for implementation
Tip 1
Ensure content is led by managers and supervisors.
Tip 2
Share with key health and wellbeing contacts and supporters, to promote internally.
Tip 3
Ensure that the format of the document is easily updated to encourage regular refresh and publication.
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Contact local force for more information