We are so excited to have Detective Sergeant Viran Wiltshire and Sergeant Sam Ryan on our blog this week! They are incredible trailblazers, running the first workplace Own My Life course for female officers in the Metropolitan Police. For those unfamiliar with Own My Life, it is a transformative method for working with women who have been subjected to abuse. After attending our 5-day training (details HERE), practitioners can use Own My Life across their work, including through delivering the 12-week Own My Life course with groups or one-to-one with women.
Our CEO Natalie Collins interviewed caught up with them early this month to learn more about their amazing HEAL DA project.
Tell me a bit about you both?
Viran: I’ve been an officer in the Metropolitan Police for over 25 years, with most of my time spent in public protection. I am passionate about ensuring that work is a safe place for police officers and staff. Where an officer or staff member is being subjected to abuse by a partner or ex, I want to ensure that no one is suffering in silence and that everyone is supported. It was an honour last year to receive the King’s Medal for my work on domestic abuse within the force.
Sam: I’ve been an officer with the Met Police for 11 years, mostly doing frontline policing. My personal experience makes me very aware of how hard it is for police officers who are being subjected to abuse by a partner or ex. Because of this I ended up on a mission to make things better for other officers.
Can you tell people what HEAL DA is?
Viran: Anyone who is abused by a partner has to deal with internal and external barriers to getting the support they need. For police officers and staff there are additional challenges due to working in policing. People may be fearful of being judged because of what they’ve been through. Sadly this is not an unfounded fear.
Alongside this, as is the case for many people, police officers and staff often meet their partner in the job. Given the unique aspects of police work, it’s often another officer who will understand the demands, challenges and joys of the job which means that when an officer or staff member is abused by a partner or ex, the perpetrator may also work for police In this situation, if an officer or staff member discloses abuse from a partner to the police, this should trigger an misconduct process. Many officers or staff are worried about the financial pressures if their partner or ex loses their job as a result of this process and being judged by their partner’s friends and colleagues as having “let the side down” by not enduring the abuse and staying quiet.
It was as a result of these, and other, challenges, which in a force as big as the Met’s (which employs around 40,000 people) led me, in 2019, to develop the Met Police’s first employee domestic abuse policy. This process led me to then advocate for the force to pilot an Independent Domestic Violence Advocate (IDVA) post to support staff who disclosed they had been subjected to abuse. In 2020, that pilot became a fully-funded IDVA role with an Independent Sexual Violence Advocate (ISVA) joining the project in 2023. Soon after we began a “safe circle” monthly meeting for officers and staff which then became our survivor meeting.
Sam: Through the challenges I had faced, I was already very aware of why members of the public may not want to report things officially to the police, but especially why internal colleagues would be put off from reporting because of the barriers Viran has outlined.
In 2023, Viran and I connected and began discussing how we could further support officers, and out of that, in October 2023, we launched Helping Employees Affected or Living with Domestic Abuse (HEAL DA)! We launched a community page on Met Net SharePoint, which is an internal website for Met staff and volunteers. We then set up a HEAL DA feed on Viva Engage, the Met’s internal social media platform. Our Viva Engage page now has over 320 members (who may have been abused themselves, or may be interested in supporting colleagues, friends or family). Up until now, all those we have supported have been women,
HEAL DA is open to everyone and there are over 40 women and one male colleague in our Survivor Network.
How did Own My Life come about as part of HEAL DA?
Viran: Although we had an IDVA and ISVA, their roles are quite crisis focussed and operate on a one-to-one basis with the person who needs support.
Sam: People always feel alone. You feel like you’re the only one, and even if on one level you know that you’re not, there’s a sense that the ways you have been responding, the things your partner has done and the difficulties that you face, all of those things feel unique to you and that can be really isolating. We felt confident that Own My Life would bridge the gap between the IDVA and ISVA support being given, and the need women have for a support network.
Viran: In April 2024 we trained to deliver Own My Life, and it’s been great that we can offer the course online. It feels safer for participants to join online, and it fits with their life and work. For some women, they would have to take a full day off to do an in-person course, and there’s no rooms that we can easily access to deliver the course. Women feel there’s a greater sense of anonymity online and everyone comes together as equals Delivering online has also meant that our second course (which we’re currently delivering) has included participants from two other police forces, so that’s been amazing!
How does management and HR support women’s participation in the course?
Viran: Women themselves can seek permission to attend the course, or we can seek permission on their behalf. With women’s consent, we send a letter to their manager to tell them what Own My Life is about and explain how it will both benefit that woman and her department; for instance by reducing sickness, increasing staff retention, and ensuring she feels supported both personally and professional. We’ve advocated for women to ensure they don’t have to make up the time, if a course sessions falls when they’re on a shift.
Sam: It hasn’t been raised as a concern so far, but we’re aware that if the perpetrator is another officer, there could be concerns about him (or her) being “outed” through the course. We’re very boundaried in our delivery and ensure that all participants keep private their partners name, whether or not he is an officer and/or his seniority or rank. This also applies to women attending the course. It’s wonderful to see the group grow together, as a sisterhood, everyone lifting each other up, no divisions based on department, force location, or rank (we have had quite senior women on the course).
And how has the Own My Life course worked?
Sam: It’s been wonderful! Women come into the first session and they often have their cameras off and don’t feel able to contribute, but very quickly all the cameras are on and everyone is growing together; we all know that we’re not alone.
It can be really hard for officers to access domestic abuse support from external services; the workplace is much safer for us. In a community group, officers will often feel they have to hold back or lie about what they do for a job as they know there’s a good chance that other women in their group will have had a terrible service from the police. But that means she starts of the course without being honest.
Viran: One woman came onto Own My Life saying to us that she would never feel able to comment on the HEAL DA community page; not only is she now a valued contributor to the page, she’s actually helping us write a training package for officers and others! Another woman shared how she’s always felt that she had to have empathy for perpetrators, because they had mental health issues; now she understands that empathy can be reserved for herself and other women and children who have been abused.
Other women in the group are keen to become facilitators, and women from minoritised racial or cultural backgrounds have shared how being on Own My Life has helped them to speak up about their experiences and the ways things have been for them, they have told us that’s not something they ever thought they’d be able to do.
Even after we launched the Met domestic abuse policy and IDVA scheme, when officers did disclose they had been abused, after that initial response, they’d be expected to go back to work fulltime, sometimes with colleagues who were either ambivalent or hostile about what they’ve disclosed, and without any sense that they mattered or were supported. Any investigations or processes can take months or even years, and so Own My Life creates a pathway to recovery and building peer support that is invaluable.
One woman was on the verge of leaving the force when she joined our first Own My Life course. She’d been told that being abused meant she should no longer be a police officer. Through the course, she built her confidence and her knowledge about abuse and trauma. She’s now been signed off as a detective! While on the course, she was involved in a domestic abuse case that had been rejected by the CPS. Through what she’d learned on Own My Life, she was able to advocate confidently to her Inspector to appeal the decision, and the CPS changed their mind and the perpetrator was charged.
What’s next for Own My Life?
Sam: We have recently had contact with Occupational Health and explained everything HEAL DA offers, including the Own My life Course. They were really pleased to hear about this and will now be signposting these to those who need it. We are also now supporting male colleagues as well, so are keen to ensure we are best serving their needs too.”
Viran: HEAL DA and the work Sam and I do is in addition to our other duties. We’re keen to see Own My Life recognised as a formal intervention and support mechanism for Met staff, officers and volunteers, with funding and staff time allocated to the work.
The difference we see Own My Life making to women is enormous and we are exploring opportunities to partner with researchers to build a formal evidence-base for the work. The two other forces represented in our current cohort have plans to see Own My Life delivered within their own forces. We’re convinced that the course should be available across all police forces, and can see the benefit of it being offered in other similar professions, for social workers, health staff, probation and others; wherever women are finding their professional or job role is a barrier to joining courses externally to their work.
If you work in policing and would like to learn more about using Own My Life within your police force, our Relationship Lead Victoria Mason would love to speak with you: victoria.mason@ownmylifecourse.org.
If you'd like to learn more about using Own My Life in your workplace, Emma Chandler shares some of our vision for that HERE, you can contact her: emma@choosetogrow.co.uk.
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