South Western Railway - the Railway Mental Health Charter

Working with their Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provider, SWR changed their EAP to provide assessments available at all hours. This was because they recognised that some of their workforce does not work typical office hours. 

Interventional support from their EAP provider is provided online or by telephone. The EAP also offers employees 10 counselling sessions either via telephone or face to face. It can refer employees to specialist psychological services if needed. The EAP also provides SWR employees with access to a network of counsellors across SWR’s different locations, an employee app, legal services, and an online support service area.

SWR have trained a team of over 150 mental health first aiders (MHFAs) who are spread across grades, functions, and locations. To ensure they stay up to date, SWR offer six weekly online drop-in support sessions, an active Teams group to share ideas, and lunch and learn sessions.

SWR have recently trained 90 managers and some of their union reps to be trauma risk management (TRIM) practitioners. SWR introduced this training in response to the number of traumatic events that were happening in the business.

SWR have recently set up an initiative called Men’s Shed Talk. This is a forum specifically set up for men at SWR. The Men’s Shed talk happens every four weeks and is an hour where men can open up about their mental health and talk with other men who may be experiencing similar things.

When the contract with SWR’s EAP provider was put in place everyone in the business received a welcome letter to the new services with a leaflet explaining the service and benefits. SWR also launched the EAP app onto all workplace phones and devices. Posters are displayed at many locations with logon and password details for the EAP website. There is also a page on their employee intranet site with details of the service and other mental health resources available to download.

SWR has noticed an increase in employee engagement in their mental health services since introducing the EAP app on all SWR mobile devices. The app has lots of information on it for employees and signposts to other useful resources. The app also has a button which can be pressed if they are in crisis which will connect them to someone to speak to.

SWR produce and send out a newsletter on different wellbeing or diversity topics each week. The newsletter is sent via email and all staff have an SWR email address and access to an electronic device. This ensures that they all have access to this newsletter.

SWR have a very strong network of mental health first aiders (MHFAs) who are very active, especially on their dedicated Teams site. There are now more frontline staff MHFAs than managers which ensures that frontline staff are very aware of the support and resources available. The MHFAs regularly promote their activities, including highlighting stories on all colleague and all manager calls.

SWR have now created an internal website with all their mental health resources available on it. They have put up posters at various locations with QR codes on them so that employees can easily access the site. The website also provides information on different treatments and support services, along with employee stories of their own mental health journeys. The website includes a variety of resources so that it caters to everybody’s different needs.

SWR and Network Rail’s Wessex Route trialled the use of wellbeing pods. These were placed in six locations across the business and allowed employees to register their mood: green (good), amber (OK but some worries), red (need help urgently). Employees could register how they were feeling. In response, they would receive a pathway to help if they were amber, and contact from the EAP or Railway Chaplin if they were red.

SWR did receive some amber and red taps but were not able to follow these up. This was because the employees did not leave valid contact details. Despite doing a lot of promotional work, SWR were unable to increase usage and encourage colleagues to share valid contact details. 

From this trial SWR learnt how important it is to engage with local teams and ensure that campaigns are strongly targeted for each location. They also learnt that programmes or campaigns must be relevant, engaging, and offer a clear benefit for those who get involved.

SWR faced some challenges with employee misconceptions about the EAP.

It is important to SWR that the EAP is seen as a normal everyday part of the business and a service that employees understand and trust. SWR have done a lot of work to make sure that people don’t feel that their concerns are being dismissed by being sent to the EAP. 

They have also tried to change misconceptions about the EAP, such as that it is only a management tool, or that information disclosed to it does not remain confidential. 

However, they have also learnt that the EAP does not work for everyone, so they offer other services. These include the ability to refer to specialist psychological services for more complex cases, including their trauma support cases.