Recruitment
““Shelley's role comprises customer service and train dispatch as well as selling rail tickets. Shelley has been in this role for 17 years.
She has successfully and positively dealt with two suicidal individuals, one male in February and a female in June 2018.
For the first situation. Shelley was out and about on the station and noticed a male close to the platform edge who was very upset and was pacing up and down. Shelley approached the male and asked if he was OK. The male didn’t respond but she persisted and eventually the male started to talk to her.
Shelley discretely ushered the male into a safer place and made him a cup of tea whilst she continued to talk to him. Whilst all this was going on Shelley was also able to summon the emergency services and remained with the male until they arrived. Shelley was working on her own on the station at the time of this incident.
For the second situation. Shelley was alerted to a distressed female by a colleague who had noticed that the lady had been at the station for some time but had not boarded any train services. Shelley approached the female, who was very distressed and offered her comfort. She was able to coax the female to a place of safety, pending the arrival of British Transport Police.
Sgt David Mannion of the BTP has commended Shelley for this intervention which made things easier for BTP to deal with the female as she was in a much calmer state.
She dealt with both these challenging situations calmly and Shelley’s actions demonstrated her commitment to the safety and wellbeing of GWR’s customers. Shelley had the confidence from her training to deal with these incidents as well as possessing the self-assurance to handle the situations sensitively.
Shelley’s actions in each of these challenging situations ensured that both the male and female individuals received the specialist support which they clearly needed. It is also likely that Shelley prevented potential incidents which would have caused wide scale distress to other customers and colleagues and disruption to GWR train services.
The South Devon Management Team are extremely proud of Shelley““
“Just wanted to thank you and your staff for the fantastic evening at the RailStaff Awards. The evening was very well organised and all the staff friendly and professional at all times.”
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