Dorset County Council joined forces with Unison and unionlearn to host “Wellbeing @ Work” in January. The free event aimed to raise awareness of health and wellbeing issues at work, and home, and was open to everyone at the council.

The Councils main committee room was full of various stalls - the local Rights of Way team were on hand to offer suggestions for healthy walks, Volunteering Dorset promoted opportunities to help across the community. There was a chance to have a massage or a blood pressure test. Unison promoting the 6 Book Challenge with the counties Library Service, whilst unionlearn were on hand to sign people up for free Tribal Level 2 courses on subjects around health.uch as Mental Health Awareness and Health and Nutrition. 

In another part of the building unionlearn sponsored sessions on Mindfullness were oversubscribed. Everyone involved with organising the day was really impressed with the turnout and are keen to work together and make these events a regular occurrence.

Dorset County Councils Employee Wellbeing Officer, Sharon Taylor, said:

Given the current climate, I think the number of attendees was really positive. We had some good informal feedback from staff who attended the Mindfulness sessions and the massage too.”

Sharon added that a lot of time and effort went into organising the event, but it came together really well on the day.

I spoke to some of the staff at the stands and they seemed happy with the event- the 1610 Leisure Centre, had quite a bit of interest and so went away happy.”

From unionlearn’s point of view it was a very useful day that showed the importance of learning at work, and how unions can support it.

The Tribal Courses being promoted by Union Support Officer Keith Hatch went down very well.

We had a lot of interest in Tribal materials. At least 25 people asked for details to be sent on to them, a number of theses were interested in more than one course, and a few were team leaders who were keen to encourage colleagues to sign up as well. The most popular courses were Health and Nutrition and Mental Health Awareness, and some people have already followed this up and sent off registration forms.”

Rose Hill is the Councils Occupational Health Service Manager, and organised the Blood Pressure tests:

35 individuals had their blood pressure checked and 13 were advised to seek further checking at their GP's. Of the 13, one had an extremely high reading and I am hopeful that the event will have reinforced the need to see urgent medical advice.”

Roger Bell helped organise the event:

As a Unison ULR, I thought the day went very well. Unison and Dorset Library Service signed up 24 people on the '6 Book Challenge' and signposted members and non-members to other stall holders on the day. Keith Hatch from unionlearn provided information on lifelong learning with free online courses, which worked with Unisons approach to learning and development with our membership. Dorset County Council , unionlearn and Unison worked in great partnership and proved to Dorset County Councillors, who supported and attended the event, that this sort of day should be a permanent fixture to the Wellbeing Calendar."