“PFEW’s Welfare Support Programme is a great compliment to South Yorkshires welfare provision”

SOUTH Yorkshire Police Federation hopes the PFEW’s ‘brilliant’ Welfare Support Programme will one day not be needed because local force welfare provision will be sufficient.

The PFEW has announced it’s doubling the WSP budget to help officers deal with the stresses of the job after new data revealed it has helped 20,000 officers and prevented five suicides since it began in 2012.

Officers are referred to the WSP programme through the Federation when facing the “most serious consequences of policing” – being suspended from duty, facing gross misconduct and considered to be at risk or vulnerable.

South Yorkshire Federation Chairman Steve Kent said the service was ‘brilliant’ but hopes that the infrastructure in forces will one day catch all officers who need assistance.

“The Government needs to invest billions into police welfare management, and if each force had 15 people for example to help officers then this [the WSP] wouldn’t be needed.

“Hopefully in the future, this kind of programme, even though it’s brilliant, won’t be needed because the infrastructure within our own police forces could hopefully deal with it [officer welfare].

“As a local Federation branch board have our own counselling services for the more emergency side of things. If officers come to us with serious problems or serious concerns, we can actually make those arrangements locally.

“That is still important, and I wouldn’t want that to be replaced by the Welfare Support Programme. But the WSP is also something we can use, and Reps can refer people when appropriate to those kind of services.

“It’s good news and it works; it complements the systems we’ve already got in South Yorkshire.”