What is HUGS@Home?
First responders experience stress as part of their work and often prefer to seek support from colleagues, family, or close friends. HUGS@Home is about understanding family members’, close friends’, and first responders’ experiences of stressful incidents and how we can best support each other during difficult times. During our training, family members and friends will discuss, learn and practice how to identify signs of stress, engage in supportive conversations, and prioritise self-care. To do this, we use simple and practical Psychological First Aid (PFA) techniques.
HUGS stands for Hearing, Understanding, Guiding and Supporting and we implement the programme in four phases:
Co-Design
First responders, family members, and organisational representatives share experiences and discuss how we can better support our community through the HUGS@Home project. Our co-design team are involved in each phase of our programme, from designing training content, co-facilitating the training sessions and evaluating the programme.
Educate
During the HUGS programme, participants learn and practice how to:
1. Recognise the signs and symptoms of stress reactions.
2. Apply Psychological First Aid to manage a stress response.
3. Engage, support and empower their first responders and themselves.
We do this through three simple principles of Look, Listen and Link.
Support
HUGS@Home collaborates with organisations offering support and resources specific to your preferences and needs.
We also expect that participants will form connections with each other, potentially fostering organic peer support relationships.
Evaluate
HUGS@Home is continuously improved through listening to the experiences of family members, friends, and first responders involved in the programme. We evaluate these experiences through online questionnaires, one-to-one interviews and group discussions with all involved. This helps us to learn and create the best possible training experiences for our participants.