1.
Supporting our colleagues:
The role of Wellbeing Champions
Virtual Community Meeting
Wednesday 9th June 4pm
#Caring4NHSpeople # ProjectM
Welcome to the NHS England and NHS Improvement monthly
national community event supporting the health and wellbeing of
our NHS people during the Covid-19 response

2.
Introduce yourself in the chat box
Say:
• Who you are
• Where you are today
• One thing you’re currently doing to
look after yourself during this
challenging time
• Send to “all participants”
To join the wellbeing community list, click on
the link at
http://horizonsnhs.com/caring4nhspeople/

3.
To join the mailing list of people who
get the information about this
community:
http://horizonsnhs.com/caring4nhspeople/
#Caring4NHSpeople
#ProjectM
Staying in touch…
#Caring4NHSpeople #ProjectM
For all the wellbeing offers: england.nhs.uk/people
All the #ProjectM offers: https://people.nhs.uk/

4.
Introduce yourself in the chat box
Say:
• Who you are
• Where you are today
• One thing you’re currently doing to
look after yourself during this
challenging time
• Send to “all participants”
To join the wellbeing community list, click on
the link at
http://horizonsnhs.com/caring4nhspeople/

5.
Supporting our colleagues:
The role of Wellbeing Champions
Virtual Community Meeting
10th June 4pm
#Caring4NHSpeople # ProjectM
Welcome to the NHS England and NHS Improvement monthly
national community event supporting the health and wellbeing of
our NHS people during the Covid-19 response

6.
NHS England and NHS Improvement

7.
Aims of today’s
national health and wellbeing
community event…
• Offer support, ideas, knowledge and wisdom
to those with a role in supporting the health
and wellbeing of our staff
• Share the range of wellbeing support activities
that are available
• Connect with each other and collectively build
our community of those who support the
health and wellbeing of our staff
#Caring4NHSpeople #ProjectM

8.
• Welcome –, Zoe Lord & Elizabeth Nyawade
• Overview of wellbeing champions – Claire Parker
• Steps4Wellness Champions – Michelle Maloney
• The Importance of looking after yourself– Professor Sharon Clarke
• #ProjectM – Nicky Squelch
• Closing Remarks – Zoe Lord & Elizabeth Nyawade
#Caring4NHSpeople #ProjectM

9.
The team today
Zoe Lord
Contributors...
Elizabeth Nyawade
Chat box facilitator
Social Media
YouTube host
Paul Woodley
Technical host
#Caring4NHSpeople #ProjectM
Neil Owen Leigh Kendall
Michelle Maloney Professor Sharon Clarke
Claire Parker
Nikki Squelch
Ian Baines
Zarah Mowhabuth

10.
NHS England and NHS Improvement
Health and wellbeing
champions
Claire Parker
Senior Programme Lead
NHS England and NHS Improvement
NHS England and NHS Improvement

11.
11 |
11 |
National health and wellbeing overview
752,230 website sessions
206,917 app downloads
Physical wellbeing with
Invictus Games:
5,430 webpage views
‘5k Our Way’ videos
viewed 8,500 times
Promotion of Mental
Health Awareness Week
16,169 contacts with
our dedicated helplines
Supporting BAME colleagues
815 coaching sessions
120 sign ups for MHFA
48 sign ups for strength
coaching training
11,130 primary care
coaching session bookings
22 wellbeing webinars with 15,000+
views
Virtual events for Wellbeing
Guardians, Primary care, enhanced
HWB projects, wellbeing
conversations – over 700 participants
At 2 June 2021

12.
12 |
12 |
Our focus in 2021/22
• The NHS People Plan 2020-21 sets out a series of national health and
wellbeing ambitions that aim to create cultures of wellbeing across the
NHS, where colleagues feel looked after and cared for. Included in
these ambitions are the following three key roles:
• Wellbeing Guardians: A non-executive director (or equivalent)
who looks at the organisation’s activities from a health and
wellbeing perspective and acts as a critical friend.
• Health and Wellbeing Champions: People at all levels of the
NHS who promote, identify and signpost ways to support the
wellbeing of their colleagues.
• Health and Wellbeing Conversations: Supportive, one to one
conversations that openly discuss a colleague’s health and
wellbeing.
Health and Wellbeing Champions

13.
13 |
13 |
What is a Health and Wellbeing Champion?
• Health and Wellbeing Champions will be individuals who
work at all levels of the NHS and who will promote,
identify and signpost their colleagues to local and
national health and wellbeing support offers.
• This is intended to be taken on as a responsibility in
addition to their day to day role.
• Many organisations may already have a similar role in
place, using alternative names such as advocates and
officers.
Health and Wellbeing Champions

14.
14 |
14 |
Who can be a Health and Wellbeing Champion?
A Health and Wellbeing Champion is intended to be filled by someone (or multiple colleagues) within an
organisation or team who have a particular interest in health and wellbeing and who are keen to support
the wellbeing of their colleagues.
This could include, but is not limited to, colleagues who work in one of the following areas:
• a member of the occupational health team,
• a health and wellbeing lead,
• a mental health first aider,
• a staff network chair or secretariat (for example from the organisations BAME network, LGBTQI+
network)
• a staff-side or local trade union representative
• volunteers with previous NHS experience
• healthcare professionals whose professional registrations have expired
• returning retirees who prefer not to return to clinical practice
It is recommended that colleagues appointed as Health and Wellbeing Champions should represent the
diversity of our NHS workforce and include colleagues from a range of roles and levels of seniority.
Health and Wellbeing Champions

15.
15 |
15 |
What does a Health and Wellbeing Champion
do?
• Encourage and support colleagues to have wellbeing conversations with
one another.
• Provide a practical role in supporting the safety and physical, mental
and emotional health and wellbeing of colleagues within their workplace.
• Share ideas, feedback and promote the health and wellbeing of our
NHS people.
• Work with existing health and wellbeing and support roles in their
organisation, such as Freedom to Speak Up Guardians, OD colleagues
and Wellbeing Guardians to consider how the organisation can best
support its workforce.
• Be aware and keep updated on both national and local offers available
to staff, including understanding how to direct staff to access support
and feeling confident in knowing when to refer staff to further services
(i.e to HR professionals or local NHS services).
Health and Wellbeing Champions

16.
16 |
16 |
How could Health and Wellbeing Champions
be introduced in my organisation?
There are a range of ways in which an organisation or team can appoint
Health and Wellbeing Champions. Whilst taking into account the capacity
of teams who would be impacted, you could consider:
• Co-ordinating the role through your internal HR, OD or Health and
Wellbeing team, inviting colleagues to complete an application form and
outline why they would like to volunteer and confirming support from their
line manager.
• Co-ordinating applications or proposals for the role through their People
Board.
• You might prefer to have a named Health and Wellbeing Champion for
each shift, in which case you could co-ordinate this on a day to day basis.
In order to offer a level of safety to the Health and Wellbeing Champions, a
joint national and regional programme of peer support and supervision will
be developed.
Health and Wellbeing Champions

17.
17 |
17 |
• Contact details for colleagues named as Health and Wellbeing
Champions could be shared across the team via email to support those
in remote/virtual working circumstances.
• Some organisations have developed posters to promote the roll and
what they can do.
• You could set up an internal online platform or use your local staff
intranet to promote health and wellbeing support and provide details of
virtual events, such as weekly check in meetings or optional coffee
roulette session.
• Colleagues appointed into the role could add a note to their email
signature advising how to contact them.
How can I communicate the role of Health and
Wellbeing Champions across my organisation?
Health and Wellbeing Champions

18.
18 |
Upcoming national resources
Launch event for Champions (13 July) – A national launch event for Champions will
be hosted via Teams on 13 July at 1-3pm. This event will be a chance to hear from the
national team on the expectations for Champions, to hear more from organisations who
have rolled out Champions, and to meet one another and create networks of
Champions.
Written guidance - developed to support the roll out and introduction of Health and
Wellbeing Champions across NHS organisation (intended for publication July 2021)
E-learning module - training for Health and Wellbeing Champions which will offer
guidance on the role of a champion, challenges this may bring, and how to offer support
to a range of issues (due in August 2021)
Programme of monthly supervision sessions - optional online sessions for
Champions, focussing on topics such as how to keep yourself well when supporting
others​, signposting, inclusivity and menopause
Case studies - Ongoing development of case studies to promote the benefits of H&WB
champions.
For any questions, please email ournhspeople.hwb@nhs.net

19.
Steps4Wellness Champions

20.
Why the project started
• QI project in June 2019
• To help improve knowledge of Steps4wellness Health & Wellbeing offer to our WWL staff
• To ensure specific internal communications are cascaded to departments and teams in which they work
• Improve staff morale by being positive about their place of work
• To empower enhance engage and enable staff
• To encourage wellbeing conversations, check in’s

21.
• Role Descriptor and application form
• Provide Training on low level mental health and supportive conversations.
• Induction boundaries of the role and expectations
• Quarterly CPD & supervision
• Wellbeing leads promote and encourage staff to sign up on wellbeing walkabouts
• Approached team leaders and managers asked for a slot at their meetings to promote
• Social media Twitter
• Marketing video
• Staff newsletter
• Provide aesthetically pleasing display boards
• Email distribution
• Offer incentives
HOW

22.
Where we are
• 152 Steps4wellness Champions trained
• Six Wellbeing Leads
• CEO and Exec team taking part in bi-weekly well being walkabouts across all sites

23.
Challenges
• Culture
• Time
• Perception “nice to have”
• Beliefs buy in value
• Investment
• Lack of understanding
• Returning to business as usual

24.
Top Tips
• Have people of influence on board
• Staff who are passionate leading the wellbeing champions
• Be open minded to teams doing things their way
• Keep momentum keep connected with your network
• Engage at local level

25.
Contact details any questions?
• For any further information on the wellbeing champions contact us at
steps4wellness@wwl.nhs.uk
• Wellbeing Manager contact details zoe.garnett@wwl.nhs.uk

26.
Managing Stress in the
Workplace….Or, ”put on your
own mask, before helping
others with theirs”
Sharon Clarke
Alliance Manchester Business School, University
of Manchester

27.
Building resilience to stress
• Resilience: the psychological capacity to adapt and
cope with adversity
• Some people are naturally more resilient than others, but
resilience can be built
• Coping with difficult situations, preparing for stressful events
and viewing challenges as learning opportunities
• More resilient individuals make greater use of
adaptive coping and emotion-management
• Actively engaging with problems
• Positive re-appraisal of challenging situations

28.
Managing a stressful job: using
coping strategies
• Coping strategies can help to prevent stress symptoms in short
term and the longer term
Stressful
work
Acute
stress
reactions
Chronic
health
complaints
Coping
strategies
Coping
strategies

29.
Emotion-focused coping
can also work!
• Emotion-focused coping is effective in stressful
situations where you have little control
• Adaptive coping can be frustrating as problems cannot be
readily controlled or re-evaluated
• Emotion-focused coping relieves stress symptoms when
stressors are uncontrollable

30.
Personal resources: Buffering
against experience of stress
• Developing personal resources – building resilience
to the experience of stress
• Proactive coping strategies
• Support networks
• Physical fitness
• Making time for recovery: the psychophysiological
process of unwinding

31.
Managing a stressful job:
Importance of recovery
• Recovery is essential to the prevention of longer term negative
health effects
Stressful
work
Acute
stress
reactions
Chronic
health
complaints
Recovery

32.
Engaging in recovery
• Recovery activities should engage different
psychophysiological systems to ensure complete recovery
(doing something completely different)
• Psychological detachment is also important for complete
recovery (not thinking about work)
• Time needed for complete recovery (daily unwinding)

33.
Maintaining personal resources
• Daily activities deplete our resources – these effects
are worse when we start the day with these
resources already running on low
• Insufficient recovery from the previous day
• Taking tiny fuel-stops throughout the day can help to
build up resources again
• Daily ‘micro-interventions’

34.
Daily micro-interventions
• Helps you to learn how to self-regulate your energy
levels throughout the day
• Take a few moments out to reflect on a positive work experience,
vividly remember the event and focus on the positive emotion at the
present time
• Take a few moments out to reflect on a negative work experience,
vividly remember the event and think about what you can learn
from the experience, and how it can help you in the future

35.
Managing Stress: A quick guide
• Managing your own stress is important not only for your
own sanity, but also for the sanity of those around you
• Be aware of the effects of stress on your own behaviour
and how this affects your ability to manage effectively
• Build your own resilience and ensure you make time for
recovery
• Proactively manage your own work to avoid ‘hindrance’
stressors
• Manage your team effectively to build in challenges and
minimise hindrances; identify signs of stress and manage
proactively

36.
Any questions?
Email:
sharon.clarke@manchester.ac.uk

37.
#ProjectM
Support for managers and
team leaders to connect, share and
learn together
Offers & Top Tips
#Caring4NHSpeople #ProjectM
Alan Nobbs
Head of Design and Development
NHS Leadership Academy
@Alannobbs

38.
#ProjectM Update
Date: 12 May 2021
#ProjectM Supporting and connecting leaders and managers in health and care

39.
39 | Presentation title
Virtual
community
Offering regular
peer-to-peer
support
Twitter: #ProjectM
Online
resources
Inspirations, bite-
sized learning &
guides
www.people.nhs.uk/
projectm
Peer
Mentoring
Twitter
#ProjectMentor /
Social
collaboratio
n
Community
#ProjectM
#ProjectM www.people.nhs.uk/projectm
What is #ProjectM?

40.
Coming up for #ProjectM?
#ProjectM www.people.nhs.uk/projectm
Our next #ProjectM Tweet Chat
is Tuesday 6th July
Twitter: #ProjectM I #OurNHSPeople @NHSLeadership
Tea & Talk time: informal safe conversations about
leading and managing from the middle
Tuesday 15th June 4:30pm to 5:30pm
E: projectm@leadershipacademy.nhs.uk
Listen & Learn: Conversations that support teams
to move from ruminating to reflection
Friday 25 June 12:30pm to 13:30pm
E: projectm@leadershipacademy.nhs.uk

41.
#ProjectM www.people.nhs.uk/projectm
#ProjectM Peer Mentoring Support…
#ProjectMentor
123
#ProjectMentorMe
103

42.
In the chat box…
Share one thing that
you're going to do as a
result of joining the
session today...
Photo by Júnior Ferreira on Unsplash

43.
Very helpful
Not helpful
To what extent has today’s session been useful in
your own role supporting staff health and wellbeing
during and after Covid-19?
POLL
If you are on YouTube or the poll doesn’t work for you on Zoom, write your number in the chatbox