Following from our pledge to tackle GBV, the Women of Westminster (WOW) Colleagues Network has the pleasure to invite you to a talk on 'Supporting Your Personal Safety' to be held on Wednesday 8th June 2022 at 1 pm to 2.15 pm via Zoom. Zoom link will be provided upon registration.

Suzy Lamplugh Trusts' definition of personal safety is “an individual's ability to go about their everyday life free from the threat or fear of psychological, emotional or physical harm from others.”

The session will cover a glimpse of some of the tools available for our personal safety namely the Brazilian jiu-jitsu by Dipika Gurnani; Green Dot by Grace Plastiras-Phillips; Report and Support by Andy Norris.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Like many martial arts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is about enabling one with tools for self-defense. This brief introduction will take you through how some of the techniques are applicable in scenarios where safety is compromised, in specific situations that occur in tight spaces where there's no room to distance yourself from the aggressor and/or escape. It's an art turned into sport. A wonderful way to build self-confidence, self-esteem and as a bonus a fun way to exercise.

Our Speaker - Dipika Gurnani

Dipika a Westminster professional colleague who's been doing martial arts from a young age. Started with karate at the age of 5, followed by judo in her teens and brazilian jiu-jitsu in her early 20's.

Green Dot

Green Dot is an active bystander training programme focusing on sexual abuse, domestic abuse and harassment. The University of Westminster is proud to be the first university in the UK to introduce the Green Dot Initiative, holding our first training in 2018. Green Dot is not just a training programme, it aims to change the culture of the institutions it works within, providing knowledge and confidence to challenge inappropriate behaviour in the community.

Our Speaker - Grace Plastiras-Phillips

Grace - With a background in Psychology and education, Grace joined the Student Support Development team two and a half years ago. Her role involves developing and running different types of wellbeing-related programmes, such as Look After Your Mate peer-support training for students and Green Dot bystander intervention training for both students and colleagues. She also trains external instructors with the charity Student Minds as well as Westminster's in-house instructors for both programmes.

This talk will provide a brief introduction to the concepts of the Green Dot programme run for colleagues and students, summarising intervention techniques and changing cultural norms.

The Colleagues Report and Support

The new Report and Support platform for colleagues was launched in February 2022 to help colleagues report and find support for unacceptable behaviour. The Report and Support portal, allows those working at the University to report experiences of bullying, harassment, sexual misconduct, racism, faith-related bullying and harassment, micro-aggression and hate crime. This includes incidents that have occurred on campus, online, inside or outside the Westminster community.

As well as providing a way to confidentially report issues, the portal also contains information on how colleagues can access support, resources and guidance. We believe that bullying, harassment and discrimination are never okay.

Our Speaker - Andy Norris

Andy joined the Organisational Development Team in 2011 and from 2015 developing and delivering the university Corporate Social Responsibility strategy, working with colleague networks to develop an EDI action plan leading to the development of our current EDI strategy. Andy became Head of Culture and Inclusion in 2020 providing strategic direction and leading on the implementation, monitoring and reporting of the University’s People Strategy; “Being Me Being Westminster”

If personal safety matters to you please register your interest and join the session for some insightful tools on supporting your personal safety at Westminster.

If you wish to be a join the Women of Westminster WOW Colleagues Network please email us on womenofwestminster@westminster.ac.uk

Kumari & Sobia