Wellbeing and resilience event

Approximately 800 staff attended one of the six sessions provided over the course of a couple of months. The guest speakers Ed Simpson and Jo Clarke were from a company called Petros. 
 
Ed Simpson – an ex police officer medically retired due to suffering with PTSD and depression as a result of being in the police 
(another police force, not Merseyside). Ed shared his deeply personal experience and this resonated with many staff, police officers and police staff alike. 
 
Jo Clarke – has vast experience of working within the prison service and public sector and qualified psychologist. Jo shared with staff how to recognise the signs of what Ed experienced and what tools are available to help deal and cope with it. 

A fundraising event was held at each session that raised money for Alder Hey children’s hospital. The staff helped to raise an amazing £1781.19.
 
The intention is to build upon this event and provide further sessions around mental health, wellbeing and welfare. This will be in the form of resilience workshops and seminars utilising Petros and other guest speakers to help deliver this message. 

How it works

• Establish clear parameters of what you want to deliver and what the outcome is you wish to achieve in order to make the event meaningful. We established what we wanted to equip our staff with upon leaving the event and how this could be implemented by them post event.
• Research of guest speakers and then period of consultation to ensure a bespoke package could be created that was fit for purpose and suitable for the target audience.
• Create a small team to create and implement the team. Each were given an area of responsibility to report at regular intervals to the project manager ensuring all aspects of the event would be ready for deadline.
• Clear communication strategy created.
• Engagement with HR and Police federation to secure additional funding.
• Force Resource Unit employed to warn all staff of their attendance at the event, providing a time and date for the session they would attend.
• Support networks both external and internal attended each session to provide additional support to staff who may have been effected by the content.
• Created fundraising element to engage staff with supporting local causes to create sense of giving back to community.
• Debrief after each session with guest speakers to identify issues, blockages and amend delivery as required.
• Post event – sought feedback from random dip sample of attendees to identify positive and constructive feedback for purposes of planning future events.