Leicestershire police’s ‘Women’s Inclusive Network’ Name Richmond Fellowship “Charity of the Year!”
Richmond Fellowship were honoured to be nominated as ‘Charity of the year’ by Leicestershire Police’s Women’s Inclusive Network (‘WIN’). Life Links went along to WIN’s ‘Where do you fit?’ conference on 9 October to represent Richmond Fellowship and promote our service and the free mental health support we provide across Leicester and Leicestershire.
The Women’s Inclusive Network provides informal support and advice about issues that in the main, but not exclusively, affect female members of police staff, such as: discrimination, recruitment, retention, specialist roles, uniform, flexible working, and work life balance. If you are interested in finding out more about WIN, you can check out their website. During the event, Christine Lawrence, our Locality Manager in Leicester, gave a presentation about Richmond Fellowship and spoke about our service to the 250 attendees. Afterwards, we held an information stall and asked guests “What or who inspires you?” We received some brilliant answers. Ranging from: “My mum” to “People’s courage and strength” and we couldn’t agree more! You can see the whole range of inspirations stuck to our Sparky mascot in the photos on this page.
Other activities on the day included guest speakers, one of whom was Zoe Thompson, a survivor of the Tunisia terror attacks. Farhnaz, our Team Manager at Life Links watched Zoe’s talk and was extremely moved by what she had to say:
“It was eye-opening to hear about Zoe and her family’s difficulties in finding support following this terrible incident. Her story highlights the need for services such as ours, which aim to inform the local community of all the support available to them. We are deeply grateful to Zoe for sharing her story – it was extremely courageous, inspirational and heart-warming. She is a true inspiration to us all.”
Superintendent Natalee Wignall of the Women’s Inclusive Network added:
The Women’s Inclusive Network is committed to improving the quality of the working environment and providing support and advice group for all at Leicestershire Police. Our 2018 conference was a great success, there were a wide range of speakers with inspiring stories to tell about how they got where they are today – the difficulties and the successes. We heard from some determined individuals and I hope that the day motivated people who were there to think about their own careers, their work life balance and maybe make some changes. The Richmond Fellowship was chosen from a number of worthy charities by the WIN committee as it supported people in finding the right help and support during and following mental illness.
Overall the day was a great event and it was lovely to meet staff from Leicestershire Police who are part of the Women’s Inclusive Network. We were thrilled to learn that they had raised over £500 for Richmond Fellowship and are so grateful for their support! We also spoke to a number of retired police officers, who expressed an interest in volunteering with us in the future, so watch this space! To find out more about volunteering with us, check out our dedicated volunteering page.
