A bespoke, four-day course aimed at building resilience in our workforce started in Dyfed Powys Police Headquarters in September. The Enhancing Resilience and Self-Care Skills pilot is a new way to help prepare people cope with the emotional stresses they face, not only as part of policing, but in their personal life too.

One of four building blocks of resilience is being equipped to manage your behaviour and emotions. The course is designed and delivered by two Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapists from Hywel Dda University Health Board, Amy Bassett-Van Doorn, and Margaret Meleady.  “The course has been built specifically to tackle issues that are affecting the people of policing right now, and the content is founded in cognitive behavioural therapy models which are proven to be effective. We have high hopes.”

A mix of 20 police staff and officers, from a range of backgrounds and ranks have volunteered to be part of the pilot. We know that emotional, or physical trauma can result in vulnerability to intense emotional states. The training pilot will focus on developing skills that manage emotional vulnerability and increase emotional resilience through a psychoeducational approach; incorporating emotion regulation, distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness.

The work has been commissioned by Dyfed-Powys Early Action Together Programme Police Lead and  Chief Inspector Dyfed Bolton, who saw the opportunity to  better equip officers and staff to deal with the challenges of modern policing. The findings for this pilot will not only feed in to the Calon Leadership and Wellbeing Group to affect change internally, but are also of interest across Wales and beyond.