/training/clients

West Yorkshire Police

Stress Management at West Yorkshire Police

“My aim was to deliver an impactive, interactive training experience on a particularly sensitive topic. CragRats helped turn my vision into reality.”

Duncan Dyson, Personnel Manager, West Yorkshire Police Communications Division

/challenge

The Communications Division has been described as the hub of West Yorkshire Police. Its 450 staff manage all telephone contact between the public and police, in addition to the Force’s response to incidents. In an average week, the division deals with over 60,000 calls, 7,500 non-emergency calls, and with approximately 14,000 incidents.

A successful response to a genuine 999 call gives the Communications Division staff a great deal of job satisfaction. However, calls can be distressing and occasionally traumatic.

Stress has been identified as a problem within the division, costing West Yorkshire Police Communications Division over £500,000 per year (to September 2004). This figure includes absence due to stress and stressrelated illness, the cost of overtime to cover this absence and the cost of recruiting and training staff to replace those leaving the Police Force due to job-related stress.

The aim of the training was to deliver an impactive programme using a range of CragRats’ accelerated learning techniques, to help staff handle their own stress, and recognise the symptoms and help manage the stress among their team members. The objective was to reduce stress-related absence by supervisor intervention at an early stage.

/approach

The project was developed through a close partnership between Duncan Dyson at West Yorkshire Police and CragRats, and followed a previous project with CragRats on absence management.

Two one-day events were designed to be delivered to all first line supervisor level staff, from civilian supervisors to Police Inspector level. The training needed to fill the gap in their experience of handling trauma and stress, so that they could then change attitudes and behaviours within their teams.

The initial focus was on supervisors recognising the symptoms of stress in themselves and developing personal strategies for coping with stress. The focus then moved on to recognising the signs of stress in their colleagues and learning how to support them. Constructive and destructive ways of relieving stress were also discussed.

/results

• 93% of delegates left the event more aware of the causes of stress for themselves and their colleagues
• 98% of delegates said they were more aware of how to deal with stress at work
• 96% of delegates were more aware of the role colleagues and supervisors can play in recognising stress in their co-workers
• 91% of delegates said they would be able to fulfil a more pro-active role in creating an organisational culture which supports colleagues in stressful situations
• 3 months prior to CragRats intervention = 226 days lost
• 3 months after CragRats intervention = 42 days lost
• 81.5% reduction in days lost through stress related absence
• The projct was a finalist in the 2006 National Training Awards Stress Management at West Yorkshire Police

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