Hello PPMA friends

For those of us working in Public Services HR and OD, these last months have been the most consequential, challenging and complex of our professional lives, and our personal lives too. During the conversations we have had over the last months, the Health and Wellbeing of our Workforces has either been the top of your list of priorities or very close to the top.

It’s worth reflecting that our workforces are so much more dynamic, complex and very human that the word ‘workforce’. Ensuring that we put the ‘human’ at the heart of all of our HR & OD work has never been more important.

There is some fabulous Wellbeing work going on across our organisations. But we have acknowledged that these unique set of circumstances may well need something different in response, but something that will sit alongside existing strategies.

Over the last month, with PPMA Board and other colleagues, we have been piloting the role out of CareSpace. CareSpace is a 20-minute intervention designed to enable “a space for self-care through facilitated connection and support”. CareSpace is delivered as either a Face to Face or Remote offering. We are delighted to be working with some amazing colleagues in North Bristol NHS Trust and UCL Psychology Department in this initiative.

Over the next few days you will find much more information about CareSpace and our PPMA Accredited CareSpace Facilitator training programme. This is open to both PPMA and non-PPMA members.

In the meantime, you can read more here. And you can listen to the following wonderful podcast. Karen Wormwell interviews Charlie Jones, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at North Bristol NHS Trust and Benna Waites, Joint Head of Psychology in Aneurin Bevan University Health Board about CareSpace and the broader work on Compassionate Cultures in the workplace. They are extraordinary people and I know you will find this is a fabulous learning experience. I hope in a future podcast we will be able to meet Katrina Scior, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology at University College London (UCL) and Kim Guest who is working with us on this until September 2020.

Charlie Jones              Benna Waites