0:00 Linda Rowley: And Steph and their tool in the chat, that would be great. And so, their appreciation. So, I will move on to our next presentation just in the interest of time. So, our next presentation, we have Taylor and Rachel, and they're from, again, Meli from the men's team, the men's group this time around doing their presentation on their resource, the appreciation wall. So, if you would like to take yourself off mute.
0:33 Taelah: Hello everyone.
0:36 Linda Rowley: Perfect. So, would you like to provide a little bit of context in relation to your team as well, just to set the scene for people?
0:44 Taelah: Yeah, for sure. So, we are the men's team, so kind of the other half of Mell and Steph. So, we work with the men. So, we primarily run the men's behaviour change program. So, that's men that have used family violence. And our main role, to put it simply because quite a complicated job, is to support men to change their behaviours, keep the women and children in their life safe, but also be accountable for the choices that they've made to use violence. So, that’s us. I didn't realise that a closeup of my face was the first presentation slide, Mell and Steph. So, thank you for the heads-up on that. I also, I'm a bit bummed we're going second. I'm not sure we can uphold such a high standard. That was really amazing actually. But either way, as Linda said, so we have created an appreciation wall, so I'll just quickly share my screen.
1:43 Linda Rowley: And I have seen your presentation and I have every confidence that you'll maintain the standard.
[On-screen text: MELI PERMAH Wellbeing Tool
Presented by Meli – Specialist Men’s Services]
1:49 Taelah: Thank you, Linda. Can everyone see that all right?
1:53 Linda Rowley: Yeah. Perfect.
1:55 Taelah: Cool. So, just really quickly before we get into why we created this particular tool, what we learned during this process was that actually, and it's sort of been mentioned earlier, that we actually all need something very different in relation to our wellbeing. So, we have a really diverse team, and we sort of started off trying to, I think we weren't trying to find a one size fits all, but we very quickly realised that there wasn't one. There wasn't a single activity or thing that we could create or do that was going to be tailored to every single person or was going to fit every single person. And so, we realised that what we needed was buy-in from upper management to be able to do whatever we need to do for managing our wellbeing. So, whether that be really permission to take breaks and to do whatever you need to do on those breaks and managing workload and caseloads and capacity and all of those things, which we do have already. So, that's really important. But we picked this particular tool because it was for the showcase specifically because it was the one that gave the most, I suppose, autonomy to people. And also, it had a real easy opt-in function. So, that’s something that we learnt doing this is that all of our wellbeing tools or anything that we did here had an opt in, so nobody had to do it and that it wasn't expected of anybody and it was an opt-in rather than an opt-out. So, this one sort of does that the most, the easiest. But some of the other stuff that we did do is we purchased some games. So, we are strongly encouraged to use those games on our break. So, we have board games and card games and a table tennis table and totem tennis and bean bag toss and all of these things that sit in our storage room and we're encouraged to just take 10 minutes, go grab a colleague that also wants to take a 10-minute break, play some bean bag toss down the hallway, just something like that that gets us away from our computers, gives us a break. So,
[On-screen text: What we learnt
Everyone needs something different to promote their own wellbeing and self-care so the importance of promoting the ability to ‘opt in’, meaning nobody must partake if they do not want to, no questions asked.
We wanted a wellbeing tool that was truly inclusive of all the needs of our staff, not everyone wants the activities to be interactive and socially motivated.
What’s important is the buy-in from upper management to know that we have permission to do what works for us when looking after our wellbeing and self-care]
3:58 Taelah: that's some of the stuff that we also did in the background. But however, the appreciation wall, so the way that it works is it's a wall obviously, where we create profiles to put up on that wall. So, I'll show you an example in a sec. But the reason why it's an opt-in is because people can choose to put a profile on the wall or not. Every couple of months, we pick a new category. So, that's randomly selected. At a team meeting, we have a suggestion box that people put categories into. We randomly select one every three months at the team meeting. So, the first one that we did, which I will show you just after this, is a pet wall. So, we all created for anybody that wanted to, we all created a profile of our pets, fun facts about our pets, and then we put them up on the wall. So, the reason that we liked this was because again, if you don't want to put a profile up, you just don’t. Nobody's chasing you. Nobody's forcing you to do it. We have a blank template that we use, so people can put their own creative flare on it. So, if they want to make it really plain and simple, they can. If they want to make it really cool and funky and they have a real creative ability, they can do whatever they want with it. It's a blank canvas. And then in their own time, they can put that up on the wall.
So, we have a designated area in which that we put them. So, this is a bit of an example.
[On-screen text: How it works
A suggestion box will be set up for people to put ideas into and a new category will be randomly selected at a team meeting every 3 months.
The appreciation wall allows any staff that want to ‘opt-in’ to participate to place a profile on the wall. The category of the profile changes every 3 months and ranges across different topics/themes to be inclusive of all our different personalities!
A blank profile template will be sent out and anyone who wants to participate can create their profile, putting their own creative flare on it. This doesn’t have to be just a profile either, people could put their own painting or something more creative to represent their hobbies!]
5:24 Taelah: This is my baby Willow that you're all about to meet. So, the first picture is our whole wall. So, that's kind of what it looks like. So, that’s everybody’s who wanted to put one up there. That's their pet profile. And then this is an example of mine. So, we just picked a couple of
photos that we wanted, and Willow likes chasing butterflies and digging holes and her tyre toy,
et cetera. A couple of things that she doesn’t like and her favourite thing. So, everybody's profile has the same questions for this particular one and we just filled in the information that
[On-screen text: Pets of Strong Street!
My name is Willow, My mum is Taelah, My birthday is 15 July 2022
I like: Chasing butterflies, digging holes, my tyre toy, chewing, walks and zoomies
I don’t like: the vacuum, the lawn mower and not being around humans
My favourite thing is: Cuddles on the couch, humans and other dogs]
5:57 Taelah: was relevant for our pets and we put it up. So, the why was, as I said, easy to opt in, but also for us, it was promoting connection and engagement. So, a few things like getting to know each other better. Everybody knows that I have a baby called Willow because I talk about it all the time. But we learned some things about some of our other colleagues who had pets that we didn't know about and got to know their pets a little bit more. But mostly, for us, the biggest thing was that it's a visual representation in the space that we work of the things that bring us joy, the things that we love, and reminds us of why we do the work in the midst of the challenges that we face working with men using violence.
[On-screen text: Why? The wall promotes connection and engagement, allows staff to get to know each other better and depicts the things that we love and bring us joy, to remind us why we do the work and remind us of the good things amid the challenging and draining work that we do.]
6:43 Taelah: So, the who is whoever wants to. Like we said, this is really just someone can put a profile up one category and not the next. It's completely up to the individual. And as I said earlier, so you could see the wall in the other photo, but that is a pretty big traffic area. So, it's in our open plan office where we will sit, but it's also directly on a walkway to our printer and our stationery cupboard and stuff like that. So, a lot of people walk past it. And what we’ve noticed is that there's a lot of people that are not even people that work in our building. They might just be visiting or here for the day or someone from a different office that will stop, and they'll spend five minutes reading the whole wall and then they'll say something to someone like, "Oh, I didn't know you had a dog," or "Oh, I have a golden retriever, too," and its sort of promoting that conversation.
[On-screen text: WHO/WHEN/WHERE
WHO: Whoever wants to!
WHEN: every 3 months a new category will be selected but the profile can be added to the wall at any time during that period.
WHERE: On the wall in the open plan office where most staff can see it from their desks. This wall is also located in the walkway to the stationary cupboard and printing room, so there is high staff traffic for everyone to enjoy.]
7:39 Taelah: These are some possible examples of also, again about me. So, everyone's getting to know me very well today. So, these aren't actually ones that we’ve created, but they were just kind of example ones that I made just to show you. So, some of the three of the things that I love to do on the weekends, so walking Willow and gardening, and yes, that is a real-life photo of my first ever tomato that I grew. So, I have a bit of a soft spot for growing some veggies. And then again, just my three favourite meals. So, Mexican ragu and schnitzels. It's purely designed to just be really something fun, a bit light-hearted and to get to know us
[On-screen text: Some examples of possible profiles: Taelah’s weekend hobbies: Walking willow, Gardening, and growing my own veggies – gets me outside in the fresh air, good for fitness and is good for the environment, my first ever tomato
Taelah’s 3 favourite meals – anything Mexican! Ragu, Schnitzel]
8:21 Taelah: better. And these, just to end, were some of the PERMAH factors that we felt like this linked to, which is I think almost all of them in some way, shape or form. So, obviously, positive emotions. It was prioritising those moments of positivity so that, like I said before, they're the things that bring us joy and that remind us why we do the work. Engagement, so discovering and developing our own individual strengths, things that we're good at, things that we enjoy doing. So, just reminding us of that and not in a work capacity, because obviously, it's easy to just get bogged down when you're at work, everything being about work, but actually we have individual lives outside of that, building connections with each other, getting to know each other better. And then the meaning, so supporting motivation for the work and representing that the things that are meaningful to us, which is really important and sometimes, gets forgotten and then accomplishments. So, celebrating our accomplishments at work, but at home, as well. As we said, because the template is blank, people can put whatever they want on it and represent that however they want. So, if somebody is creative, I know there's a colleague here that we have in most of our offices as little paintings that she's done. So, if she wanted to, she could put a painting up on the wall. That’s something that she's really proud of and that she loves to do and that she feels really accomplished in doing so. That could be her way of representing things that she loves doing and what brings her joy on the wall. Yeah, that's pretty much it. So, just something that we can all be connected to, but that isn't requiring too much from anybody and that nobody feels forced into participating in, because that was really important for us to make sure that nobody's doing something that is not what they want to do or that's pushing them out of their comfort zone. Stop sharing. Cool.
[On-screen text: PERMAH Factors
Positive emotions – prioritizing moments of positivity
Engagement – discovering and developing our individual strengths, things we’re good at and enjoy doing.
Relationships – Building connection within relationships, getting to know each other better.
Meaning – supporting motivation for the work and representing the things that are meaningful to us.
Accomplishment – Celebrating our accomplishments at work and at home.]
10:18 Rachel: You're on mute, Linda.
10:22 Linda Rowley: Thank you so much, Taelah and Rachel, for
10:25 your presentation. I can see already that people have started putting comments in the chat of appreciation, so I would encourage you to continue to do that. I really loved the opt-in element and also just wanted to thank you, especially Taelah, for your vulnerability and putting up your profiles for us as examples that really made it real for everyone. So, thank you so much again.
10:54 Taelah: No worries.
10:56 Linda Rowley: So, I'm now moving on to our...
[End of transcript]
Updated