The Oscar Kilo Awards have been created to recognise the amazing work that has been done and continues to be done, across UK policing when it comes to providing wellbeing support for the people who work for you.
On this page, we will be telling you about the fantastic work carried out by each of the winning projects, sharing your winning ideas, learnings, and best practice.
Creating the environment
This category recognises initiatives that help to create a workplace environment that is conducive to good wellbeing
WINNER: The Metropolitan Police for their work on the Trauma Peer Support programme.
The benefits of an effective, assured and governed Trauma Peer Support Programme (TPS) include immediate peer support to personnel post-incident, support with the management of trauma exposure, and early intervention/identification of those at risk of developing related mental health conditions.
TPS has been firmly embedded within the Met and is combined with comprehensive occupational health and psychological services to reduce the impact and severity of trauma related mental health conditions, improve sickness absence rates and reduce the risk of future work-related ill-health litigation. It is an essential component of the Met’s commitment to supporting their people.
The programme is available to all staff. It has been developed further to support those in more vulnerable roles such as online child abuse teams and military reservists returning from active duty.
The judges commented that The Met have put massive effort into scaling up a trauma support system across a very large workforce and are to be commended for not only the great progress they have made, but also their willingness to share their experiences so that we can find ways to replicate this nationally.
RUNNER-UP: Surrey and Sussex Police for their Wellbeing Screening Programme.
This project focuses on comprehensive health checks to improve the health and wellbeing of staff and officers through a series of preventive health measures. The main activities of the screening include conducting blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose (Diabetes) tests, supplemented by brief discussions about diet and exercise. These health checks are designed to help participants identify potential health risks early and encourage the adoption of healthier lifestyles to prevent future diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and strokes.
This screening leverages preventive health checks, educational resources, and collaborative follow-ups to foster a culture of health awareness and proactive health management among staff and officers.
The judges said that Surrey and Sussex have demonstrated real ambition to provide health screening at scale and cost effectively, backed up by high numbers of staff supported.
Absence management
Entrants in this category had to demonstrate how they have designed and implemented specific programmes to address the levels of absenteeism across their force.
WINNER: Nottinghamshire Police for the support they have put in place for those on maternity leave.
This project was developed by Nottinghamshire Police to ensure that they maintain good contact with employees who are on maternity/adoption leave. To do this they updated their maternity/adoption leave policy and procedures and introduced a wide range of initiatives which when combined made for a more supported all rounded maternity experience.
Initiatives included: Mummy MOTs and twice yearly virtual KIT meetings, the creation of a WhatsApp group - 999 Mummy - for all new and expectant parents and those who have young children, the creation of a breast-feeding network called Breast Buddies. To support new and expectant fathers, they also promote the DadPad app.
The judges said that Nottinghamshire deserves recognition for their focus into an area of support which directly affects families and officer retention and productivity.
RUNNER-UP: Gwent Police for their work in understanding sickness absence.
Gwent Police has a high level of sickness absence in force, however previous lack of data has made it difficult to understand the causes and implement effective change.
The wellbeing team investigated several different sources of information, and ways to identify more information so they could create a report to understand recurring themes. The findings and recommendations were presented to the chief officer team, and they have since introduced:
- Private health opt in scheme costing £15.50 per month with Benenden Health.
- A line managers' wellbeing course, and the first two have had positive feedback leading to the course becoming mandatory.
- Stress management courses which have been disseminated to teams in CID who were reporting the highest levels of stress.
- Biometric research to identify stressors
The judges said that Gwent Police have made huge strides in cutting across different data sets to fully understand, and therefore address, absence figures relating to stress which quite often do not fully explain reasons for absence.
Leadership
This category focuses on how good leadership can make a difference to the wellbeing of both the organisation, and of officers and staff. The projects recognised in this category this year have shown significant improvements in how their leadership contributes to wellbeing.
WINNER: Leicestershire Police - East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU) for their approach to Performance Development Reviews.
Leicestershire have grasped a complex issue relating to a collaborated function showing inconsistency in terms of wellbeing support and policy amongst seconded staff. This is a long-standing problem which they have worked hard to resolve.
This project involved everyone within EMSOU using a single PDR process on an annual basis. They have a requirement for everyone to have a mandatory people objective to help develop and inspire their workforce and evolve their culture. This SMART people objective has to link to one of the five pillars of the People Strategy (for example, inclusive culture, leadership or wellbeing).
Success has been how they have seen the People Strategy authentically brought to life, moving it away from a static document that is rarely mentioned, to people actively requesting sight of this so they are better informed around the ‘ask’ of them to help deliver positive improvements.
RUNNER-UP: Hertfordshire Police for their overall approach to wellbeing.
The force wellbeing programme covers all of Hertfordshire Constabulary. Led from the top, it is aimed at everyone in the Constabulary, with a vision ‘To support the wellbeing of all our people, enabling them to provide the best possible policing service to the communities of Hertfordshire’.
Wellbeing previously had a low profile across the Constabulary with a lack of knowledge, understanding or confidence. The team invested a huge amount of time and energy into improving this over a period of months. Wellbeing Champions, who could lead and cascade wellbeing initiatives locally, were trained centrally, they now have over 100, with representation across all departments. This representation helped to increase awareness of wellbeing services, the support available and how to access it.
The team also explored national best practice and considered sports programmes against a challenging budget. To create a positive and more joined up wellbeing culture, a strategic board to govern wellbeing force wide was created and incorporated force chaplains and TRiM as well as Occupational Health. This approach started to address the issue of cohesion, ensuring that all offers of wellbeing were housed in the same location and governed via one mechanism using PowerBi data to drive decision making and focus.
As the Wellbeing team shifted focus to proactive offers in order to ensure officers and staff were supported by their leaders with techniques and opportunities to reduce stress or psychological impacts. We focused on Trauma Informed Prevention Technique (TIPT) training which commenced with high harm units followed by a train-the-trainer programme before being rolled out across all force units. Pause Point was also introduced to high harm units – mainly child safeguarding.
The judges said, Hertfordshire have demonstrated genuine wellbeing leadership with C/Supt Simpson leading from the top and cascading training and development support across the force.
Protecting the workforce
Entrants in this category had to demonstrate how they have designed and implemented specific programmes to protect the health and wellbeing of their officers and staff
WINNER: West Yorkshire Police for their whole force approach to embedding wellbeing into the organisation
West Yorkshire Police have been recognised for a long-term investment in this approach which is strongly influenced by employee voice achieved by sustained commitment to listening to the lived experience of their people.
The Force Health and Wellbeing Team ensure continuously take measures to maintain and improve the wellbeing of officers, staff, and volunteers through their Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Here are some of the deliverables:
- Reducing sickness absence within the workforce:
- They developed a comprehensive prevention and postvention guidance alongside an ILearn and video to promote the conversation around suicide.
- Ensuring their Health and Wellbeing Support Services are accessible to all, by introducing peer supporters, a TRiM referral tool, and a welfare supporter scheme.
- Enabling their health and wellbeing intranet site to be accessible on personal devices.
- Delivering training around topics including resilience, suicide, sleep, trauma, mental health, and stress.
- Introduction of wellbeing pods to be used at scenes, they include a kitchenette with boiling water, microwave, and a toilet.
- They introduced a ‘one click away’ to access mental health support with a permanent hero tab on the main West Yorkshire Police intranet.
RUNNER UP: The Police Service of Northern Ireland for their Wellbeing and trauma resilience programme
The judges said PSNI have made huge progress in an area which is complex and sensitive by working with experts in the field, their own people and staff associations. This is a great example of a force determined to translate research into practice.
They have achieved this through five major projects:
- Project 1: Psychoeducational training & self-help resources - To increase mental health awareness, reduce stigma and enhance skills, the PSNI improved its workforce’s access to bespoke education and information on mental wellbeing within policing.
- Project 2: Expansion of Peer Support services - PSNI increased the skill set and capacity of its post incident peer support team and wellbeing volunteer scheme through training and CPD events
- Project 3: ME App: Mental health self-assessment - The ME app is an assessment tool that was developed to help the PSNI workforce evaluate their own mental wellbeing.
- Project 4: Wellbeing Trauma Resilience plan - This is a self-guided psychoeducational tool co-created with police officers to help individuals more readily consider the potential impact of their policing role and exposure to work related trauma, their psychological wellbeing and the actions they can take to be more mentally resilient.
- Project 5: Group based EMDR pilot - Working alongside world experts a number of peer supporters were trained to co-deliver a bespoke group based form of EMDR alongside clinicians from the OHW Mental Health Service.
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Mental Health
Entrants in this category had to demonstrate how they have designed and implemented specific programmes to reduce the risk and support individuals with mental health concerns.
WINNER: Lincolnshire Police for their Great Outdoors project.
The Great Outdoor project has become a beneficial support intervention to those that were struggling to cope with transition from policing into retirement and for those that were struggling with poor mental health.
This project has seen successful outcomes in participants so far, one person that had taken part in the project has stated, “Nurturing something else into life has really helped my wellbeing. Gently caring for something helped me to care for myself”.
The programme is helping individuals:
- Improve mood
- Reduce feelings of stress and anxiety
- Help people take time out and feel more relaxed
- Get people moving and improve physical health
- Improve confidence and self-esteem
- Connect people, provide peer support and connect to the local community
- Reduce loneliness
- Help people feel more connected to nature
The judges said that Lincolnshire has shown real creativity by tapping into volunteering combined with the well evidenced benefits of outdoors activity to add value to their communities whilst improving staff mental health.
RUNNER UP: Gloucestershire Constabulary for their approach to practical suicide prevention support.
Gloucestershire Constabulary recognise that a collegiate and full system approach is needed in order to navigate the complexities and to protect the workforce from the risk of suicide. Their work contains multiple strands with a collective ultimate purpose of suicide prevention, including;
Local Suicide Prevention Protocol launched in January 2024 – which seeks to build awareness and confidence around the subject of suicide, with practical tips and guidance for preventing suicide and/or responding to concerns around suicidal intent.
Gloucestershire Suicide Bereavement Protocol - Memorandum of understanding between Occupational Health and PSD, which seeks to create a framework for information sharing between these departments with an aim of preventing harm including suicide.
Enhanced PSD individual risk assessment which has been further developed to assess individual vulnerabilities utilising evidence-based understanding of protective and risk factors.
Applied suicide intervention skills training for PSD welfare officers – and forward plans to develop this alongside the Oscar Kilo - Peer Support model.
The judges said that you can see that Gloucestershire have really invested in a whole system approach to suicide prevention which shows a genuine commitment to reducing escalation into mental health crisis.
Occupational Health
Entrants in this category had to demonstrate how their occupational health function is making a difference to the health and wellbeing of their officers and staff.
WINNER: Cheshire Constabulary for their Building Personal Resilience Programme
Operation Hummingbird is a major investigation within Cheshire Constabulary into Lucy Letby a British former neonatal nurse who murdered seven infants and attempted the murder of seven others between June 2015 and June 2016. Given the nature of the Op Hummingbird Investigation, Cheshire Constabulary are cognizant that staff will experience prolonged and repeated exposure to sensitive and distressing material, specifically in the context of emotional wellbeing and psychological symptomology, namely psychological trauma.
Investigative roles within the Op Hummingbird investigation are identified as very high-risk due to the frequency they are exposed to trauma. This programme involves the development and introduction of a specialist resilience and wellbeing support to improve the psychological wellbeing of staff working on the Op Hummingbird investigation.
The enhanced psychological support strategy comprises of five components; clinical consultation, psychoeducation, trial support, psychological debrief and facilitated psychological access. These components aim to address the potential impact on the wellbeing and psychological health of the parents, families and staff involved in the investigation and trial.
The judges said that Cheshire are to be commended for putting into place a sophisticated and very personalised programme of support for officers and staff impacted by a high profile, traumatic investigation. The attention to detail leaps off the page with individuals supported at key points throughout and beyond the conclusion. This entry clearly demonstrates that Occupational Health is a leadership responsibility not a place we send our people to, in this instance OH have played a major part in the outcome for the officers and staff involved.
RUNNER UP: West Yorkshire Police for their review of management referral process within their Occupational Health unit.
At the start of 2023 Occupational Health in West Yorkshire Police was being perceived as unresponsive, out of touch, and not meeting the needs of the organisation. Line managers felt disempowered and unsupported. Most importantly, staff who needed OH advice in order to efficiently, effectively and safely do their job were left stranded. The OH Unit team were not immune to this. We wanted to provide a service that was fit for purpose.
After consultation with stakeholders, clinical staff worked with the employee relations team and a focus group of line managers to amend the report template. More detailed reporting and more robust processes led to a resource capacity issue. They worked hard to fill any vacancies, and the Senior Nurse implemented a rigorous induction that ensured new staff were supported by the other clinicians, felt empowered to do their job and understood where to go if they had questions.
The involvement of all the staff in the Unit has been critical to the success of this project. The need to reduce waiting times was regularly discussed at team meetings and team training, and all staff felt an ownership of the issue, and therefore of the solution. Since 2023, when this programme began, no clinical staff have left the Unit.
By June 2024, triage was being completed in a day, and appointment waiting time was 5 working days, this is almost a 90% decrease
The judges said that West Yorkshire Police have recognised the risks associated with the misconduct process and management referrals by putting into place a non-judgemental and supportive system of support.
Personal Resilience
Those recognised in this category show how personal resilience can be impacted in a variety of ways, and how important it is to increase understanding educate and support individuals and increase their resilience
WINNER: Thames Valley Police for their Dynamic Breathwork programme
During Covid, a number of Thames Valley Police (TVP) officers worked with a small police charity called The Curtis Palmer Program which supports officers and staff with PTSD, trauma based and emotional issues. The charity was supported by The Breath Connection, founded by Sam Murray and Miranda Bailey, who created a unique 10 day online dynamic breathwork and cold-water therapy course, designed to help with anxiety, depression, stress, PTSD and mental health wellbeing.
C/Insp Stewart Codling introduced Sam and Miranda to the TVP wellbeing team in 2021 in the hope that we could fund a forcewide initiative to offer dynamic breathwork to all staff and officers.
Force Wellbeing funded a 12 week initiative which was so successful that a second initiative, this time for 12 months was implemented in August 2023. This allowed two sessions of dynamic breathwork per week along with an extra session of functional breathing delivered by The Breath Connection at no extra cost.
The project is so different to anything else, that has meant that engagement has been high and the online sessions can accommodate up to 1000 users per session, with attendees taking part either from an office space or from home.
The judges said Thames Valley Police, led tirelessly by C/Insp Stewart Codling and the force wellbeing team, have shown that they are prepared to listen to what works from staff affected by PTSD and other health challenges by working with the brilliant Curtis Palmer Project. To be able to scale this up is a great achievement.
RUNNER–UP: Cambridgeshire Constabulary for their residential nature-based retreats for mental health and wellbeing.
In 2022, Cambridgeshire Constabulary and ERSOU partnered with mental health charity Mind Over Mountains in a pilot nature-based residential retreat in the Peak District for 20 participants.
Each retreat involves two wellbeing walks, which are typically 8-12 miles long, supported by two mountain leaders and two wellbeing team members. The emphasis is on walking and talking, shoulder-to-shoulder, with frequent stops for mindfulness (often using the landscape as a basis). The process of walking and talking is very organic, with individuals invariably finding opportunities to chat to a coach or a counsellor during the day – but also to connect with and chat to their colleagues. Often, they’ve found that the most profound conversations can happen between participants rather than with a coach or counsellor, something that’s a function of the safe space that the retreat team are able to create.
Evaluation demonstrated statistically significant improvements in both anxiety and wellbeing/depression.
The judges said Cambridgeshire have embraced the resilience benefits of social support combined with being in nature by partnering with Mind Over Mountains with great results which have been independently evaluated.
The Police Covenant
Entries in this category all addressed and evidenced how the wellbeing aspects of the Covenant have been applied in their force and demonstrate the impact in one of the following areas; support for families or leavers, Operation Hampshire, practical application of the Occupational Health standards, or work that tackles ‘organisational stressors’
WINNER: Gwent Police for their approach to supporting both families and those leaving the service
As part of the Police Covenant launch, Gwent Police identified their current offer for supporting families and leavers required improvement. Much of the information and support available was hard to find, but what they did do was working well, for example Gwent Babies, Vivup and financial roadshows.
Sickness absence and wellbeing referrals indicated that the wait for individuals to see doctors in the NHS was long and individuals often contacted them with stress due to children being unwell themselves.
Private healthcare was put out to tender, and the company that won was Benenden Health, at £15.50 it was a cost-effective option for individuals in a cost-of-living crisis. The company was willing to allow families to be added for diagnostics and treatments, which over half of the applicants did.
Their fostering and carers leave was reviewed and relevant leave entitlement documents created to put forward for consultation. These go beyond the legal number of days to assist individuals with pre planned appointments also rather than individuals having to use all their annual leave.
The judges felt that Gwent Police have embraced the Police Covenant and been courageous in reaching out to families and those leaving to listen to their voices so they can develop a brand-new approach to supporting them including opening up access to health provision and a great private health option which has proven to very popular.
RUNNER UP: West Yorkshire Police for their ‘Our people and their people’ work
West Yorkshire Police devised their Health and Wellbeing Strategy with the wellbeing of our officers and staff past and present as well as their families being key.
They have gone the extra mile to ensure a first-class service was provided from the inception of a person's journey at West Yorkshire Police, to its conclusion and thereafter.
Some of the projects introduced through the strategy include:
- “Your Wellbeing Matters” feedback campaign which allows officers, staff, volunteers, and the wider policing family to inform the Health and Wellbeing Team, and the wider Force what impacts them in their District or Department.
- Management and coordination of support services including Chaplaincy and EAP.
- Mental health training available to anyone who has left the organisation, and the wider policing family.
- Blue Light Babies is an informal and relaxed session open to any members of staff who are currently away from the workplace, staff about to go on leave, their partners and anyone thinking of starting a family and/or supervisors.
- 200 Police Care children’s books have been distributed, to soothe the anxiety of children whose parents work as first responders and to help initiate emotional wellbeing conversations.
- Developing a football group which has over 100 of our staff playing 5 or 7 a side several days a week and is available for all WYP employees, retirees and family members.
The judges said that West Yorkshire Police have made a really strong statement of intent to reach the families of serving officers and staff by arranging ‘on the ground’ activities such as open days and establishing new networks.
OK9 Wellbeing and Trauma Support Dogs
Entries in this category have been able to demonstrate an effective use of wellbeing dogs in their force and be able to evidence a significant impact and direct benefits for officers and staff.
WINNER: Bedfordshire Police for re-invigorating their OK9 programme after a change in ‘paw-sonnel’ (personnel)
Rylie, Mutley and Goji re-energised the OK9 programme at Bedfordshire following the retirement of Luna who is very much missed. The dogs and handlers are in great demand and proved popular with all officers and staff at Beds – they've even featured on TV!
The OK9 scheme involves bringing wellbeing support to staff and colleagues who are feeling low. The dogs interact with staff and officers by playing fetch, having selfies, providing treats and hugs. The atmosphere instantly changes when the dogs enter a room.
On a visit the OK9 handlers observe the room to identify if anyone seems to require additional support. They are offered TRiM, peer support or are signposted accordingly. The project is a huge success helping countless staff. Success will be measured by feedback from individuals they have visited.
RUNNER-UP: Warwickshire Police for Introducing OK9 wellbeing dogs into the force
The introduction of OK9 and support of the Warwickshire CC has reinvigorated the officers and staff. The handlers have also undergone the Peer Support course and exemplified the path to introducing OK9 in force.
Warwickshire OK9 dogs have supported mutual aid events locally, they are used for national events such as mental health week, response week, SNT and investigations weeks of action.
They make regular visits to the control room due to the demands placed on the staff working in that particular environment. The interactions, even if only brief, give the individual time to decompress from their current work and re-energise.
Innovative approaches to improving deployability
Entrants into this category needed to be able to demonstrate innovation and good practice particularly in the use of data combined with supportive interventions, clearly evidence how a system or process has encouraged a reduction in the flow from short term into long term sickness and / or show how interventions have helped to reduce other avoidable abstractions from operational roles.
WINNER: Sussex Police for their trauma tracking work
Sussex has led the way in establishing trauma data tracking backed up by early intervention support informed by data insights and analysis. All forces should be tracking and intervening in response to trauma exposure and Sussex has overcome many challenges to put their system into place.
Sussex Police Trauma Tracker was always intended to be a tool in support of supervisory interventions to interact with their teams, increasing their awareness of accumulative trauma and the impacts of this, upskilling them in support and signposting, and ultimately ensuring that those early opportunities were taken to keep people well.
The automated platform has brought consistency to recording traumatic incidents that frontline teams are exposed to across the force, supporting our line managers to see clearly on a dashboard who in their team has experienced trauma at an incident which date parameters can be applied and so you can see that accumulative impact over many years, the last month, or bring down to the current set of shifts.
Supervisors were provided with information and links to interventions on one page to use as needed, and there are continued CPD opportunities alongside the use of the tracker which include inputs around trauma care, health screening programmes, and trauma impact prevention techniques for all Sussex Police leaders.
New recruits all receive an input on wellbeing and resilience, and all first line leaders receive an input on how to manage this for themselves and their teams, courses often supported by practitioners and OK9 handlers with their OK9 dogs to promote that peer-to-peer engagement, as well as sharing lived experiences.
A forcewide working group is also in place with representatives from across different disciplines across the force, ambassadors for the Trauma Tracker and wellbeing, who help with reality testing and checking, are engaged with the work, and want to see further development to capture more of the workforce.
The data has since been used in evidence based policing conferences to predict levels of trauma around Operation Hampshire and officer/staff assaults, with themes and trends identified with teams and managers which required intervention and additional support and/or training to reduce future incidents.
RUNNER-UP: Gwent Police for their work around dyslexia
Gwent have been recognised for putting supportive systems into place which help new officers who are dyslexic ensuring the issue is dealt with sensitively and in a strengths-based way.
Dyslexia assessments had been delivered in Gwent for a number of years, however the importance of this offering was recognised by senior managers wanting all new starters to be offered screenings. As a result, in 2023, the dyslexia portfolio was moved into the wellbeing team.
The team went into every new starter induction for staff, officers, CSOs and transferees to offer initial dyslexia screenings, go through results on the same day and arrange any necessary follow ups including meetings with their manager to discuss any adjustments required.
The project creates an environment where as soon as individuals are introduced to the force, the topic of neurodiversity and wellbeing is discussed which enables individuals to feel more confident in having open conversations with peers about their neurodivergent conditions and get the correct help and support, further protecting them from feeling like they excluded.