Support for Myself

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Nurse Lifeline

Nurse Lifeline is a registered charity providing a free, confidential, UK-wide, peer-led Listening Service. It is available to all nurses, midwives, and healthcare support workers, students and the friends and family of such staff. Nurses and Midwives can access the service by calling 0808 801 0455 or by emailing: alex@nurselifeline.org.uk. There is also a Request a Call-back function. Lines are open from 7pm–10 pm, Monday to Friday. Nurse Lifeline also has The Blog and offers a range of supportive resources.

Staff in Distress Sheet

This is an information sheet (pdf) on the range of support available, both internally and through outside agencies, to you or any colleague if you are experiencing distress or are in crisis. This includes supports available for those experiencing mental health concerns.

Values Based Reflective Practice (VBRP®)

Values Based Reflective Practice VBRP® is a structured method, which provides an intentional way of reflecting on past practice, in the present, in order to improve practice in the future. It provides a language and tools to support reflection.

Reflective practice can enable you to move from a place of habit (always doing what you have always done) into a place of wisdom (responding creatively and sensitively to each individual situation).

The VBRP® model encourages us to explore our values, attitudes and behaviours.

VBRP® can be practiced both individually and in a group facilitated by a qualified VBRP® facilitator.

To find out more please watch the VBRP® Marketplace video, view the VBRP® web page or contact gram.VBRP@nhs.scot to book a taster session.

Wellbeing Information Sessions

The We Care team can support a 30 minute Information Session to introduce We Care which is a staff health and wellbeing programme established to deliver, co-ordinate and enhance staff wellbeing across NHS Grampian and Health and Social Care Partnerships.

Why choose an Information Session?

Give staff the opportunity to reflect on where they are with their wellbeing.
Staff have the opportunity to consider how they are looking after their wellbeing and what they can do at work and at home to support it.
Find out about individual and team support.
Find out how to access resources and training.

Spaces for Listening

#SpacesForListening sessions are open to all staff in health and social care. The sixty-minute sessions are formed by a simple, structured process that creates a space in which everyone in the group has an equal opportunity to experience a level of listening and sharing within a spirit of appreciation and confidentiality. There are no more than eight people in each session. The host is part of the group and guides three prompted rounds. Each person takes a turn to share their thoughts, feelings, and reflections in response to the prompt questions - and it’s always okay to pass in any particular round. The core principles of the approach are to stick to the timings and a set running order, thereby ensuring the equality of space and safety each person experiences. To find out when places are available and to book a place please visit the Turas Page.

Promoting Resilience

Individuals, line managers and supervisors attending this 2.5 hour workshop will be support to learn and apply resilience knowledge and skills with learning outcomes that will help individuals understand the link between pressure, stress, performance and health, measure personal resilience, measure emotional intelligence and identify actions you can take to build self-resilience. For more information or to book onto a session, please click here.

Guided Journaling

Journaling is recognised as being helpful in reducing anxiety through: providing clarity; identifying patterns; revealing emotions, and processing decisions. It can help us become more flexible and accepting in our thinking. Strengthened self-discipline and achievement of goals are also attributed to journaling. These 30-minute guided journaling sessions provide us with an opportunity to pause and reflect; to observe and understand what’s happening around us and inside of ourselves. For more information and to book onto a session please visit the Turas Page here.

Recovery in Mental Health

The course explores recovery and helps individuals understand how recovery is both possible and likely in mental health. The course has been developed for those wishing to learn how recovery can support mental health illness. For more information or to book onto a session, please click here.

Relaxation Workshop

A mainly practical workshop (80%) allowing participants to experience a range of relaxation methods. The stress/relaxation response, human performance curve and benefits of practice are also highlighted. A variety of relaxation techniques are provided in the form of handouts along with a relaxation practice CD. For more information or to book onto a session, please click here.

Stress Awareness

The Stress Awareness session is designed to provide participants with increased knowledge regarding stress, assess their current stress producing factors and learn practical methods to increase health and wellbeing. For more information or to book onto a session, please click here.

Your Financial Wellbeing

This course is designed to help employees identify the key financial issues that can arise during their working life and assist them with making key decisions and take control of their finances. Further information, including how to book onto a session, is available. The session previously ran as Focus on your Finance.

Additional Cost of Living Support provided by Healthpoint:

Healthpoint work to support NHS Grampian staff and vulnerable patients and provide financial support which includes the following:

Supporting clients to access an online benefits checker to ensure they are receiving the benefits they are entitled to. Clients can either complete the online form themselves, or a Healthpoint Advisor can support them and complete the online form on their behalf. Once completed, the website provides a list of suggested benefits if appropriate
Informing clients of local food banks/pantries and referring clients where appropriate
Work in partnership with Home Energy Scotland and can now refer clients directly to them. They will then provide the client with energy saving advice and practical support
Work with Social Security Scotland, we can now advise clients with long term conditions on the benefits potentially available to them and signpost them to support to complete the application forms
Signpost clients to cost of living services across Grampian e.g. Citizens Advice Bureau, Council Welfare teams etc

Find out more about Healthpoint.

Menopause Awareness in the Workplace

Roughly 9,500 of NHS Grampian employees are women, all of whom will experience the menopause at some stage. There are also currently over 2,500 women employees aged between 45 and 54, which is almost 28% of the NHS Grampian female workforce. For many women, menopause causes a great deal of stress, and being at work can make it worse. Although it is rarely discussed at work, the menopause is a natural stage of life that millions of women workers are either going through now or will experience in the future.

We Care have developed two training sessions bookable through Turas: Menopause Awareness in the Workplace and an additional session: Menopause Awareness in the Workplace - Male only Sessions | Turas | Learn (nhs.scot). The aim is to make people aware of the issues that women who go through the menopause can face, and how these can affect the way they work. The course is aimed at line managers, team leaders, supervisors, HR personnel and all other employees to find out how they can support women at work who go through this phase in their lives, and to women employees themselves, to make them aware of the fact that they can seek support if required.

Menopause Tea and Talk

In addition to the training sessions available there is also a Menopause Tea and Talk open forum which is run and delivered through MS Teams. These sessions aim to provide a dedicated space to encourage colleagues who are experiencing menopausal symptoms to feel well informed and supported through a range of activities and educational opportunities which will run on a monthly basis and are run on a drop-in basis where colleagues are welcomed to attend as and when they are available. For more information or to register for any of the above sessions you can contact gram.wecare@nhs.scot

New animation on Pelvic Floor Exercises

A brand-new animation on pelvic floor muscle exercises for women is now live on NHS Inform Women’s Health Platform. The film provides practical advice on how to exercise pelvic floor muscles and explains in more depth why this is so important for women.

Psychological Safety

The Psychological Safety course runs for 2 hours and is suitable for those who have no knowledge of psychological safety as well as those who would like to refresh their existing knowledge. The course focuses on what psychological safety is and why it is important, things that undermine psychological safety, i.e., why people might be unwilling to speak up. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on what drives psychological safety, so what makes people feel comfortable to speak up. For more information or to book onto a session, please click here.

Understanding, Developing and Maintaining Personal Resilience

Resilience is a person’s ability to adapt in response to situations encountered. The measure of resilience is the measure of their capacity for change. Resilience underpins all sustainable performance and wellbeing. Being resilient creates capacity for navigating uncertainty in healthy and effective ways. At the heart of resilience is agency – the individual owning their own resilience levels and implications – plus learning. For more information or to book onto a session, please click here.

OHS

NHS Grampian’s Occupational Health Service (Go Health) provides a wide range of services and comprises a multidisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and counsellors. For referrals or to view the Policy please click here: Information can be found on My Healthy Workplace Website here or via the Occupational Health Service page of the intranet here.