Frederika Roberts

Whilst pizza nights, “casual Fridays” and team away-days can contribute to the wellbeing and optimal functioning of individuals and teams, they can also spectacularly backfire.

This keynote highlights the essential elements that enable individuals and organisations to flourish. Frederika will share evidence-informed and experience-led examples to transform workplace culture, including (but not limited to!) strengths-based approaches to improve teamwork and performance, practical everyday wellbeing approaches and tools, and how to create an environment of psychological safety at work.

Delegates will learn about Frederika’s practical, evidence-informed LACES™ (listening, appreciation, connection, emotional clarity, strengths) framework for wellbeing. Through practical examples and, if the workshop format is chosen, opportunities to practise the tools and skills, delegates will leave with a toolkit of resources to support not only their own wellbeing, but the wellbeing of their colleagues, families and friends, too.

Delegates will learn how to apply key evidence-based tools and habits from positive psychology and related fields to improve the quality of their lives inside and outside of work. SMILE™ (Strengths, Meaning, Interest, Love, Engagement) will provide them with a range of practical ideas to implement in- and outside of work for improved communication, productivity, and enjoyment.

Understanding and working with strengths supports a positive workplace culture. In this keynote or workshop, delegates will learn about the power of character strengths to make life easier and more fun. Frederika will demonstrate simple techniques through applied examples (and practical individual, pair and group exercises, in the workshop format) that will enable participants to:

• Explore their own strengths
• Learn to strengths-spot in others (colleagues, employees, family & friends)
• Design ways to work with strengths to create more productive, successful and enjoyable workplaces and make life in- and outside of work more fun

Delegates will learn simple yet powerful evidence-based practical tools and techniques to help them manage everyday challenges and emotions. They will learn to distinguish between helpful and unhelpful coping strategies and thoughts, and how to manage their thoughts, actions and emotions to create thriving workplaces and personal lives.

Appreciative Inquiry is a strengths-based approach to achieve organisation-wide change/improvement with active participation from all stakeholder groups. By focusing on “what works” and involving stakeholders at every stage, this approach enables organisations to create workplace culture and other improvements with full buy-in from their staff.
Frederika is a certified Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner who has been using this methodology in her doctoral research to improve whole school wellbeing. She has also used this approach in workshops outside of school settings to enable diverse groups of people to work together to create common goals and action plans for improvement.
Whether you wish Frederika to guide you through a full Appreciative Inquiry, or want to learn about its principles and use some of the tools and techniques in your organisation, Frederika can facilitate this.

In this fun and interactive workshop, teaching and non-teaching staff, middle and senior leaders in schools, colleges and universities will:

• Gain a better understanding of mental health and how to recognise the signs and symptoms of mental ill-health in themselves and others
• Understand stress and how to manage it
• Understand the role of positive emotions in supporting wellbeing and overcoming negativity bias
• Apply practical tools and habits to maintain everyday wellbeing and mental health
• Practise activities to boost their mood and optimistic outlook

In this lively, interactive workshop, School Senior Leadership Team members will explore and focus on practical and strategic ways to increase whole school wellbeing, including:

• Why take a whole school approach? What does it mean?
• Models of whole school wellbeing
• Promoting enthusiasm and buy-in
• Systems & policies viewed through a wellbeing lens
• Recognising the school’s existing strengths and building on them to support the wellbeing of all members of the school community
• Taking into account the school’s unique cultural context