Women's support network is always there for colleagues who need help or advice

5 March 2024

Ahead of International Women’s Day, the chair of Nottinghamshire Empowering Women to Succeed (NEWS) has spoken about how the network supports Nottinghamshire Police colleagues.

Detective Inspector Kylie Westlake said NEWS was ‘always there as a friend’ to anyone who needed its help or advice.

“I see it as a business-as-usual network,” she said. “We’re always here to support you. We’re a constant.”

Kylie, a Nottinghamshire Police Federation member, said the group was open to everyone in the organisation.

“It’s not just for women,” she said. “I’m very much for supporting and empowering women and raising issues that relate to women, but also it's open to everyone else in the organisation because we need to give everyone the tools to be able to support women.”

Kylie became involved in the network in 2019 as an active member of its steering group. She took on the role of vice-chair before taking over as chair.

Detective Inspector Kylie Westlake.

She has since rebuilt the NEWS steering group and collectively they have set out a new mission statement ‘to provide a professional support network which will encourage and empower women in the police family to maximise their potential’.

The network also has a new set of objectives:

• To create opportunities for women by improving access to networking, role models and mentors as well as providing support for recruitment processes.
• Create a signposting function to assist women and other colleagues to access support.
• Create an inclusive and diverse network.

Kylie explained that one of the group’s main areas of work was around the gender pay gap.

“It’s a key one for me,” she said. “We signed up to the pledge in 2022 and I’m helping to ensure the organisation meets that pledge.

“It’s not just about female representation at the higher ranks, it’s around flexible working availability at the higher ranks. That could be flexibility for childcare, but I’m also looking at any caring needs, disability, any type of flexibility.

“I am working with the organisation to address perceived barriers around this.

“I have personally met with a number of women within the organisation who are either constable or sergeant rank, and looking to go to the next rank but feel they may not be accepted in light of their flexible working requirements.”

Another key piece of work was around menopause.

“We were the first Force to bring in a menopause policy and menopause continues to be an important theme,” Kylie said.

“We are holding coffee mornings bi-monthly. They’re pretty relaxed occasions.

“People can come and talk about it, and we are actively encouraging both men and women to attend to raise the awareness further.

“Our first one had about 20 people in attendance and the second one we had more than 60.

“That says to me we’ve chosen the right method and people find it helpful. I am looking forward to the next one in April.”

Other areas of work include coaching and mentoring as well as supporting female colleagues with the fitness test. NEWS has worked with the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign previously to ‘identify barriers and themes’ for women and to ‘create an encouraging network to support people through the bleep test, and we continue this work in partnership with the training department’.

Also, uniform changes are being progressed ‘because we haven’t got a fully female-specific uniform’.

NEWS continues to support The Working Families Group, which developed from an idea to ensure there was consistency for women returning to work following maternity leave. The Wellbeing team supports the group in delivering regular and consistent KIT days in partnership with People Services and Payroll.

The group has developed to support all working family dynamics, offering support and guidance regarding IVF, adoption and providing advice on policies in partnership with People Services. 

NEWS continues to look for new areas to provide support and has started to attend the National Endometriosis Working Group to enable it to bring the latest support and guidance into the organisation. 

The network also has plenty planned around this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD), which takes place on Friday 8 March. This year’s theme is Inspire Inclusion.

It is looking to raise awareness of its work through a number of internal communication pieces. These include ‘This is me’ articles to introduce a number of the steering group members and their areas of expertise, as well as sharing links to inspirational quotes with the intention of colleagues sharing them among themselves to inspire each other.

It is also linking up with Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service on Thursday 29 February for a Human Library event around menopause, at which Kylie will be talking.

The NEWS steering group will be available to talk about the group’s work at Force headquarters on 12 March, event details will be shared internally.

“We’ll be talking to people about all of the things we’re involved in and introducing our steering group,” Kylie said. “And if there’s anything else you would like us to start looking at, then let us know.”

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