“How you feel is everything!”
Andy Rhodes is currently the Deputy Chief Constable of the Lancashire Constabulary and the national lead for wellbeing for the police services within England and Wales.
In a remarkably candid interview he shares with me his vision of the future; where the police service is at the moment and some of his own battles that have shaped him into the leader he is today.
Its a fascinating insight into a senior leader within senior management.
References:
http://www.strongyoungminds.org
http://www.lancashire.police.uk
The “Buzz” mentioned in this podcast is an internal intranet chat board for the employee’s of Lancashire Constabulary to share their views and discuss topics.
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A very thought provoking and interesting interview. As someone who left the service following my battle with depression and experienced some very negative attitudes from senior individuals in the service this desire to push and embed wellbeing is well overdue. One of the many challenges thr police service face, which Andy acknowledges, is the cultural shift required in order for any real impact to reap rewards. This will inevitably take time and the path will be littered with challenges. One of these challenges will be to keep the process simple and not make it seem something that is the preserve of academics. Wellbeing is, as Andy points, out a personal responsibility that your employer can support. A healthy workforce will be a productive workforce but some of the more complex issues such as mental health problems will need professional intervention. I am an advocate of ‘talking’ as a therapy and feel that this should be something that the service looks to embed as soon as possible. The move by Lancashire to have ‘OK’ badges albeit well intentioned perhaps prevents the notion of ‘its time to talk’ or ‘its good to talk’ being seen as something we can all do to support each other. Emotional Intelligence is not a new concept and again should not be seen as something for senior officers. I studied this in 2008 as part of my Masters degree so it should be central to police personal development. As the service moves to a degree profession wellbeing and mindfulness needs to be included on the curriculum to ensure that it is seen as important as other aspects of the profession such as command and control.