Menopause Allies with Over The Bloody Moon

12:30 – 13:30 – Thursday 4 August 2022
Online Via Teams

Over the Bloody Moon is a leading menopause consultancy who will talk to us about the menopause transition and how you can better support colleagues or a partner. Lesley is here today to help managers feel more confident and equipped to support those negatively impacted by menopause. By being more aware of the signs, we can help others join the dots and respond in an appropriate and empathetic way.

Please email the Wellness Working Group if you would like a link to the event: mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk

Professor Chris Williams Helping you – and your constituents Live Life to the Full

Thursday 26^th May – 10am – 11am

Living life to the Full (LLTTF) is one of the UK’s most popular wellbeing resources, and is widely recommended in health, social care and charity settings. A free access site at www.llttf.com provides online wellbeing skills, and courses to help those living with stress and low mood, long-term physical health problems including long-covid, new parents and others. It helps people to understand their feelings, and learn key life skills based on the popular and evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approach.

Award-winning author Professor Chris Williams, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Glasgow, and twice past-President of BABCP – the lead body for CBT in the UK, will give an overview of the resources, and how they can be used to support your constituents, your families, friends and ourselves. Dr Williams is also Director of Five Areas Ltd which has developed a range of widely recommended wellbeing resources. He is an award-winning author and his books, classes and websites are widely used in the UK, Ireland, and North America. The free-access www.llttf.com life skills course is the most recommended CBT product in NHS England IAPT services and mental health trusts (Bennion et al, 2017 BMJ Open). His work has been translated into Somali, French, Chinese, Italian, Urdu, Ukrainian and Romanian, as well as six other languages. Contact details for Professor Williams are below.

To register for the meeting, please email mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk

No Panic – Understanding Anxiety Disorders

Time: 13:30pm
Date: Wednesday 20th October
Venue: Online

No Panic is a registered charity that helps and supports those living with Panic Attacks, Phobias, Obsessive Compulsive Disorders and other related anxiety disorders. No Panic also provides support for the carers of people who suffer from anxiety disorders.

One of the charity No Panic patron’s will be hosting an interactive and engaging talk on the background of No Panic, understanding anxious thoughts and anxiety disorders, chatting through their own lived experience of anxiety disorders and practical ways you can develop your own self-care strategies?

Please RSVP to mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk

Advantages of a Caring Culture – Kirstie Hawton, Octopus Group

Time: 10:00
Date: Friday 1 October 2021
Where: MS Teams

Kirstie has revolutionised the culture at Octopus by putting employees wellbeing, mental health and gratitude at the forefront of everything they do.

Come along to hear how Kirstie made this change and to get some tips on how we can look after ourselves, our colleagues and our offices during these particularly troubling times.

Please email mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk to register

Wellbeing Hub for Members’ Staff

The Wellbeing Hub for Members’ staff can now be accessed directly from your desktop using the orange and blue icon which should now have appeared.

The Wellbeing Hub brings together all resources into one place, with information on what support services are available and ideas, tools and templates to support you with your wellbeing. It is designed by Members’ staff who understand the challenges of your roles and have tailored the resources accordingly.

The site was created by the Wellness Working Group, a cross party group of Members’ staff, with the support of the House. Please feel free to get in touch with us on mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk to hear more about their work or tell them your thoughts on the Hub.

If you are looking for some support or if you are interested in what more you can do to support your team’s wellbeing at this difficult time, then visit the Wellbeing Hub via the desktop icon to find tools to help you.

Hollie Gazzard Trust and MSSS talk on personal safety

This is an event from the Wellness Working Group

Wednesday 14 July 14
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Nick Gazzard from the Hollie Gazzard Trust talking to the group about Hollie’s story and the work of the Trust. He will be joined by Neil Cahalin from Member Security Services at the House to speak about available personal security measures available through Parliament.

About the Hollie Gazzard Trust:

Hollie Gazzard was murdered by her former partner following domestic abuse and stalking at the age of 20. Hollie’s dad, Nick is determined to raise awareness and help educate other of these issues and what this can lead to using Hollie’s tragedy as a way of getting the message across. He will explain in detail what happened to Hollie, how he turned this awful tragedy into something positive with the creation of the Hollie Gazzard Trust as Hollie’s legacy. A key aim of the Trust is prevention and he will speak about Hollie Guard a personal safety app that has now been downloaded over 50,000 times, along with the development of Hollie Guard Extra. He will finish with a Q&A session and will answer any question about what happened to Hollie, how this has affected him as a father and the family, along with the topics of domestic abuse and stalking.

RSVP to mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk

The Well Gardened Mind

This is an event from the Wellness Working Group

Thursday 8 July 2021

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Author of the Sunday Times Bestseller, The Well Gardened Mind, Sue Stuart-Smith will join us to talk about the benefits of nature for wellbeing.

“In a powerful combination of contemporary neuroscience, psychoanalysis and brilliant storytelling, The Well Gardened Mind investigates the magic that many gardeners have known for years – working with nature can radically transform our health, wellbeing and confidence.”

https://www.suestuartsmith.com/book

RSVP: mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk

Cultivating the inner capacities of the mind and heart – Director of the Mindfulness Initiative

This is an event from the Wellness Working Group.

Tuesday 29 June 2021

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Jamie Bristow is Director of The Mindfulness Initiative, a policy institute about mindfulness and compassion training that grew out of a programme of mindfulness teaching for politicians in the British Parliament. The Mindfulness Initiative provides the secretariat to the UK Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group and helped politicians to publish the seminal Mindful Nation UK policy report. Jamie now works with politicians around the world to help them make capacities of mind and heart serious considerations of public policy and has supported the introduction of mindfulness training in over 10 national parliaments. He was formerly Business Development Director for Headspace.

RSVP to mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk

New Wellbeing Hub for Members’ Staff

The Wellness Working Group has launched a new Wellbeing Hub for Members’ Staff.

This is a dedicated space created by MPs’ staff for MPs’ staff; they know just how difficult this job can be and the importance of taking time to look after yourself. They have gathered all resources to support you on this site.

The Wellness Working Group is a cross party group of members staff that aims to place a greater focus on mental health and increase support for members staff wellbeing.

Please visit the Wellbeing Hub for Members’ Staff here: https://hopuk.sharepoint.com/sites/hct-wellbeinghub

There will be a tour of the new Wellbeing Hub at 3pm on Wednesday 12 May 2021. Please click here for details of how to join: https://hopuk.sharepoint.com/sites/hct-wellbeinghub/_layouts/15/Event.aspx?ListGuid=391ff5e9-e147-4629-996a-5998ff65a95a&ItemId=3

Virtual Events for Mental Health Awareness Week – 10th – 14th May

Please join us for a series of fascinating events to mark Mental Health Awareness Week.

We are also launching the WWG’s very own SharePoint site which includes information on:

Spending the IPSA wellbeing funds
Group supervision – what is it and how might it help staff?
Employee Assistance Programme
Courses run by the House on mental health
Templates and exercises for you and your team to use to promote wellbeing.

Please email mpsstaff-wwg@parliament.uk in order to receive the links to each meeting.

Monday 10th May
3pm – 4pm –
Ceri Finnegan, Mind
‘Coping in Tough Times’
________________________________________________________________________________

Tuesday 11th May
11am – 12pm
Hein Ten Cate, NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist on Trauma
‘Understanding trauma, types of trauma, supporting others and looking after oneself.’
________________________________________________________________________________

Wednesday 12th May
3pm – 4pm
MP’s Staff Wellness Working Group
‘Join us to see our new Sharepoint site’
________________________________________________________________________________

Thursday 13th May
3pm – 4pm
Dr Robbie Anderson, Managing Director, Chimp Paradox
‘Optimising the performance of the human mind’
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Friday 14th May
11am – 12pm
Rachel Edwards, Life and Career Coach
‘Who are you and where are you going?’

________________________________________________________________________________

Take care

Chloe, Steph, Estelle & Tom
Wellness Working Group

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