Devon Wellbeing Hub – support for teams

Posted by Devon Partnership Trust in News, Recovery and wellbeing on 7th July, 2022

As well as providing support for individuals, the Devon Wellbeing Hub also offers support for teams, giving you and your colleagues the opportunity to think about your collective wellbeing. This is especially important given the increased working pressures of the last two years.

What does a team workshop involve?

We welcome requests from managers who would be interested in group support for their team. You’ll meet with one of our psychologists or our psychotherapist, who can assess the needs of your team before tailoring support to you.

Workshops can vary hugely depending on a team’s needs and dynamics but are always centred on finding ways to enhance the wellbeing of both the team and the individuals within it. Common elements between workshops include the opportunity to talk in a safe space about challenges, time to identify team strengths and examples of positive practice, as well as thinking about concrete ways of moving forward. Participants are also asked what they would like to achieve from the day so that their voices are heard throughout. Some teams, who have had to work remotely these past few years, have also used these sessions as an opportunity to get to know each other and hear how colleagues have been feeling.

When requested, workshops can also include a session on ways to maintain and enhance individual wellbeing. The aim is to get participants to think about their own personal situations and how they can best ensure they keep their own batteries charged through what can be very challenging circumstances.  

The workshops can take place wherever your team would prefer. Our psychotherapist, Jody Merelle, recently ran a team workshop at the Headland Hotel in Torquay. Thanks to the sunshine, the session was able to take place outside in the hotel’s beautiful garden. This particular workshop included the use of imagery and an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback about how it felt to work in the team. The collective feedback was then discussed in a group setting which gave some insight as to the different feelings present within the wider team. Music was also used which gave participants a chance to connect as humans, and not just talk about work - this part of the day was filled with lots of smiles and laughter! The group then collectively formed some ideas on how to move forward from the problems discussed earlier in the day, which were then written up by Jody on a flip chart.  After the workshop, the day’s thoughts and themes were distributed to both participants and their managers so that they could form the basis of future planning. This is an example of just one workshop, our aim is to offer your team an intervention that is bespoke to your collective needs.

Jody said: “Workshops have proved to be very beneficial as a space for reflecting on the work of the team, highlighting any concerns, celebrating achievements, sharing positive practice and coming up with suggestions for positive ways forward. Workshops can also be used to think about stress management, coping strategies and how we can all ensure our wellbeing becomes a priority rather than an afterthought.

“I am very lucky as I get to spend my time with teams of creative and dedicated professionals in the caring professions. I’ve met some really inspiring people doing this job. Many of them are used to putting the welfare of others before their own, so we need to do everything we can to look after them and to remind them to make their own wellbeing a top priority.”

Our team workshops have received lots of positive feedback since the Hub launched last year:

“The workshop was fantastic! Delivered with empathy, understanding and a great sense of humour. We all benefitted from exploring how best to take care of ourselves as well as those around us.”

“I attended a wellbeing session as part of a team away day which was really well presented and gave us lots of opportunities for discussion and reflection, both as individuals and as a team. Would highly recommend.”

Get in touch

If you work in healthcare, social care or the police in Devon and lead a team who would benefit from support, please get in touch by calling 0300 303 5455 or email dpt.devonwellbeing@nhs.net, mentioning ‘team support’. If you are looking for 1:1 support, you can fill out the simple referral form on the Devon Wellbeing Hub website.

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