The Child Maintenance Group Centre (CMG) is celebrating after becoming the first Plymouth business to achieve a Silver award within the Wellbeing at Work Award programme, which is coordinated by the Wellbeing at Work Team at Livewell Southwest.

The Plymouth Child Maintenance Group Centre has been working alongside Wellbeing at Work for a number of years and previously established Wellbeing Champions, an annual health needs assessment, and a health and wellbeing steering group, to achieve a Bronze award in October 2019.

Nita Dodd, Advanced Health Improvement Practitioner at Livewell Southwest, said:  “The Plymouth CMG Centre has worked really hard to prioritise the health and wellbeing of their employees, particularly during the challenges faced over recent months as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Demonstrating real determination, Claire and her team, have worked steadily towards their goal and have shown that they are dedicated to looking after their staff’.

In order to achieve the Wellbeing at Work Silver Award, businesses are asked to choose to work on three of seven toolkits, in accordance to the needs / priorities they identified at the Bronze award stage.  CMG chose to look at the following: ‘Mental health’, ‘Physical activity, healthy eating & healthier weight’ and ‘Reducing the risk of suicide’. Each toolkit provides a range of advice, information, resource links and assessment criteria to complete.

Claire Reader, Wellbeing, Plymouth Service Centre Support Team at Plymouth Child Maintenance Group Centre said ‘Thank you so much for granting the silver award. It is great to receive exciting news, particularly at this difficult time when Wellbeing is of our people is more crucial than ever. We are proud to display the new logo as we share our news internally and move towards the Gold standard’.

As part of the ‘Physical Activity, healthy eating & healthier weight’ toolkit assessment, CMG has been working closely with Plymotion to ensure that their business is promoting sustainable travel.

Rosie Starr, Sustainable Transport manager at Plymouth City Council said:  “This is great news and something we can all be proud of. Our Plymotion team has been working with Plymouth CMG Centre for many years through our Plymotion at Your Workplace Programme.

“We’ve worked together to help ensure the CMG have the right measures in place for people who want to walk or cycle to work or to travel by bus – it’s all about  making it easy for staff to incorporate physical activity and sustainable travel into their daily journey to work.

“This is recognition of the good relationships built up and the commitment CMG have to their staff’s wellbeing and to the city’s wider goals of being greener.”

As well as advising on facilities, such as showers and cycle parking, to support walking, cycling and bus travel, the Plymotion team have been regular visitors to promote sustainable travel and discuss transport issues. They have also provided adult cycle training through Plymotion partners, Plymouth School Sports Partnership.

The Plymouth Child Maintenance Group Centre will be officially presented with their framed award at the Wellbeing at Work Annual Conference in January 2021, and in the meantime, will receive a certificate in recognition of their considerable achievement.