Behind the scenes champion
Best of luck to our own Wendy Hodgkinson who is a finalist in the Inside Out Awards – an annual initiative to celebrate mental health and the organisations and individuals who champion it.
The ceremony takes place on June 7, with Wendy, a suicide prevention and awareness development facilitator with DCHS, nominated for the Behind the Scenes Champion award.
Suicide prevention programme manager Kath Rowe nominated Wendy for the “incredible” work she has done within DCHS to promote suicide awareness.
- “She has campaigned tirelessly to advocate for suicide prevention within the Trust and has achieved incredible results,” said Kath.
- “She has formed strong relationships with senior members of staff to ensure that suicide prevention is recognised at Board level and has delivered a significant number of suicide awareness sessions to colleagues across the Trust.
- “She has shown remarkable dedication to the suicide prevention cause, and her passion and tenacity means that DCHS have made significant strides in becoming a suicide safer organisation. What she has achieved within DCHS is phenomenal.”
- “I feel very proud to have been nominated,” said Wendy.
- “It’s wonderful to be recognized for what we’ve done across the Derbyshire system. It will be great to represent DCHS and say: ‘this is what we’ve done’.
- “The most rewarding thing has been getting to the average person and helping them to feel comfortable talking about suicide. To make them realise that they don’t have to be a professional to have these important conversations.”
Wendy, who began her career with DCHS as a healthcare assistant in a Urgent Treatment Centre, was due to retire last year. But the 67-year-old continues to work three days a week, driven by her passion to build on the progress made so far.
“We’re rolling out the model we’ve adopted in DCHS across the wider system and getting the council and other NHS Trusts on board,” she said.
“It’s so important to have these conversations with people. Because the more people are confident to talk about suicide, the more we can do to prevent it.”
