Digital Handbook

Making It Happen

Optional ideas informed by the EuroPris Staff Wellbeing Expert Group to help you explore the topic further and adapt approaches to your own prison service.

Creating a supportive, healthy workplace relies not only on formal policies but on the quality of everyday conversations between managers and their teams. Wellbeing conversations are a practical and powerful tool for building trust, understanding individual experiences, and identifying support needs early. When approached consistently and with genuine care, they help staff feel valued, heard, and connected, particularly during key moments such as induction, adaptation, and times of change.

This section outlines how organisations can embed wellbeing conversations into routine practice, ensuring they are not a one‑off intervention but an ongoing thread in the relationship between managers and staff. From integrating wellbeing into mentoring and early career support, to sustaining informal dialogue, using structured tools, and aligning with wider organisational policy, these approaches help create psychologically safe environments where staff can thrive.

Wellbeing conversations have the strongest impact when introduced early, particularly during key transition points. Managers should:

• Include wellbeing conversations in mentoring relationships, whether between mentors and mentees or between senior staff and new colleagues.

• Use these discussions to explore expectations, early experiences, and how individuals are settling in.

• Recognise that early support builds trust, helps staff integrate quickly, and highlights challenges before they grow.

In several European services, wellbeing conversations are included in both formal performance discussions and informal check‑ins during the probation period and beyond. This reinforces the message that wellbeing is a normal and expected topic of conversation.

Wellbeing conversations should continue throughout a colleague’s time in the organisation. They are most effective when they form part of everyday leadership practice. Managers are encouraged to: Managers are encouraged to:

• Maintain regular, informal wellbeing check‑ins, not only when concerns arise.

• Create an open atmosphere where staff feel safe to raise issues early.

• Set aside time for conversation as part of building a psychologically safe team environment.

• View ongoing dialogue as a preventative measure that strengthens cohesion and identifies emerging issues before they escalate.

Structured tools help managers approach wellbeing with confidence and consistency. Organisations can provide:

• The HELP model (Hear, Empathise, Link, Plan) to guide empathetic, solution-focused conversations.

• Toolkits that offer:

  • A clear framework for wellbeing conversations

  • Guidance on what effective, supportive dialogue looks like

  • Prompts to help identify practical actions for managers and staff

• Accessible resources that reduce uncertainty and support consistent, compassionate responses.

Embedding wellbeing in organisational frameworks ensures it is understood as a shared responsibility. 

Organisations should ensure:

• Explicitly reference wellbeing conversations in relevant policies, such as wellbeing, post‑incident support, or resilience frameworks.

• Make clear that managers are expected to initiate and maintain these conversations.

• Normalise mental health support and early intervention as part of professional practice.

• Ensure leaders role‑model healthy behaviours to reinforce cultural change.

• Position wellbeing conversations as central to creating psychologically safe workplaces, rather than optional or “nice to have”.

When wellbeing conversations are consistent, structured, and supported by policy, they help create workplaces where staff feel valued, supported, and able to contribute at their best. For managers, this is not about having all the answers; it is about making space for open dialogue, listening well, and connecting people with the right support at the right time. For organisations, it is about creating the conditions that make these conversations possible, expected, and recognised as part of good leadership.