The cost of living crisis has the potential to affect your mental wellbeing in many ways. We know that it has pushed money worries to the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Money worries can manifest in feelings of embarrassment and shame with individuals often not knowing where to turn for advice and support. In many instances, financial worries can impact your mental health causing anxiety, low mood and stress, as people make difficult decisions about what they can afford. Poor mental health can also affect people’s ability to manage money, for various reasons such as not knowing where to start.

Thrive London offer free mental resilience training to help both yourself and others who you care about. Their ‘help yourself and others’ space brings together a range of ideas, inspiration and resources to help build your resilience and improve wellbeing, and to learn from community experiences.

Help yourself and others focus on things that enable good wellbeing, alongside free wellbeing training opportunities. For those who may need it, you're also only one step away from more direct support, such as NHS talking therapies or urgent helplines.

Looking after your mental wellbeing can help you cope with life’s problems and enjoy life more. For more information on how you can start your journey towards building personal resilience, please visit the Thrive LDN website. 

The council is changing the platform that it uses to engage with residents. We currently run services from two different online platforms to engage with residents and staff - Citizen Space, which handles online surveys, and Let’s Talk Redbridge, a multi-functioning platform with various engagement tools including surveys.

From April 2023 we will be ending the contract with Citizen Space and migrating onto one platform.

If you or your team currently engage with residents, or if you are considering the need to in the future, please contact the Internal Engagement inbox to find out how this change may affect your work, especially if you currently use the Citizen Space platform. 

Online training for the new platform is available every Wednesday from Bang the Table, the new platform provider, and we encourage all staff to sign up to this to help familiarise themselves with the platform and its capabilities. Please note, this may be a more in depth than you intend to use the platform for, but it will be a good opportunity to understand how it all works.  

If you have any questions about the transition, please contact the Internal Engagement inbox. All teams are also encouraged to book in a consultation meeting with one of the engagement team where we can discuss the needs of your team, start setting you up on the new platform and demo some of its features for you.

Be prepared – winter train strikes have been announced!

The National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers (RMT) has announced another series of train strikes which will affect National Rail services most of next week.

The union has also announced closures that will affect Christmas travel plans, as well as a strike the first week of January.

Please check the National Rail Enquiries Journey Planner closer to the action dates listed below for any updates. Alternatively, you can call 0343 222 1234 for 24-hour travel information.

The strikes will severely disrupt travel. Please check your journey before travelling and speak to your manager if you have any concerns.

Please read our intranet news story for more information.

Our brilliant comms team was shortlisted for Best Social Media Account in the comms2point0 ‘UnAward’.

Our Digital Campaigns Officer, Sarah O’Brien, has put Redbridge Council on the map with her innovative TikToks and Instagram reels. Who can forget Claire’s legendary introduction as our Chief Executive, with a Love Island reference? Congratulations to Sarah and the rest of the team, and thank you to everyone who has taken part in the reels.

Sarah and internal Digital Content Officer, Christina Stylianou, (pictured right) attended the 7^th annual awards ceremony which was held in Birmingham’s Everyman Cinema last Friday, 2 December. In true social media fashion, Sarah made a reel of the day’s highlights, including a peak into the Christmas market.

The Unawards recognises originality, creativity, and results. They are hosted by Comms2point0; a learning and sharing space created and run for comms professionals. Watch the reel to take a look at what the team got up to on the day!

In the latest intranet news story, colleagues are informed of the important work that was done at last Wednesday’s youth democracy scrutiny event.

As part of a national ‘Your Voice Matters’ youth democracy project, and to champion the borough’s Child Friendly Borough initiative, the Leader of the Council, Cllr Jas Athwal, invited high school students to share presentations on issues that matter to them. Councillors, community champions and many young people, supported by the council’s Youth Service Team, voted to shortlist the nine presentations received from pupils attending three different high schools. The five presentations which received the most votes are now being forwarded to cabinet for consideration. 

To ensure that IT systems continue to operate effectively, essential maintenance is scheduled to take place on Sunday 18 December on the following platforms:

• VMWare Remote Desktop Solution (VDI) – 8am to 12pm
• Netloan Service – 8am to 9am
• Always on VPN and DirectAccess for remote working – 12pm to 2pm
• Revenues & Benefits System – 8.30am to 10am
• Housing System – 9am to 10.30am
• Planning – 9.30am to 11am
• Agresso – 10am to 12pm

There may also be some general disruption to other IT systems during this period (8am – 5pm). To minimise impact, we recommend that you avoid using these systems for those hours, but if you have no alternative then please ensure you save your work regularly.

Please use ServiceNow IT if you have any further queries.

The fostering team are encouraging people to make this Christmas the most memorable yet by changing a life with Foster for Redbridge.

“I love watching the difference I can make to a child. I love watching them succeed in life and to know I have made a difference to their life”- Sarah, 49 and Kazim, 55, Foster Carers for Redbridge.

“The thing I love most about fostering is seeing the progress children and young people make during the time they are with us. From surviving to thriving. I also wish I was told what fun fostering is and the sense of community you feel when meeting with other foster carers for support, friendship and advice. You really aren't on your own.”- Tracy, 54 and Wayne, 53, Foster Carers for Redbridge

Like all of our Redbridge foster carers, you could quite literally change a child’s life.

If you or someone you know are interested in fostering, there are many ways you can find out more information. Visit the Redbridge Fostering website for more details or to book onto the next virtual information event, which is being held on 16 December. You can also email the Fostering team to book, or if you have any questions.

The latest edition of Redbridge Life, the council’s quarterly magazine and information bulletin sent to all residents, was published this week.

A lot of hard work has gone into writing and editing content for this edition and so please do check it out if you get the chance. You can find out about important local events and the support which the council is offering to residents.

You can view the full magazine online now, and if you’re a Redbridge resident you can look forward to it arriving at your door shortly!

Congratulations once again to last month's Star of the Month winner, Jagjeet Jutlay, for her brilliant work helping vulnerable residents. 

Nominations are now open for the next Star of the Month award. This time, however, we will be waiting a little longer to find out the next winner! We will be taking a short break for Christmas, and as a result nominations will remain open until 15 January 2023. 

That means you have some extra time to think about some of the great people across the council and get your nominations in! Congratulations to everyone for all your hard work this year and we look forward to announcing the next winner in January.  

Support yourself throughout the month of December with an environmentally friendly, digital winter wellbeing calendar. You can open up a door every day to find many things to help with your wellbeing this winter. The calendar will allow you to access daily wellbeing tips, ideas, practical support and much more. A great way to make sure you remember each day to set aside some time for wellbeing.

Simply go to the NHS Keeping Well website to sign up.  

Our employee assistance programme is available 24hrs a day and seven days a week.

If you're struggling at the moment due to things like your workload or uncertainty about the future, our employee assistance programme can offer you support, counselling, and guidance through this emotionally difficult time.

Don’t wait for a crisis to happen before you access this support. Staff who have used the programme have given positive feedback with comments such as, “It really helped me”, “I wish I called them earlier” and “I feel so much better now”.

This service is open to staff and their families by self-referring. Call 0800 328 1437 or go to the employee assistance website (password Redbridge).