Time To Look After Officers’ Mental Health
MENTAL health in policing must be treated as seriously as physical safety.
South Yorkshire Police Federation is supporting a campaign by the PFEW that asks officers to be on the lookout for signs that colleagues might be struggling with their mental health.
South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Steve Kent said: “We as a Federation support our officers with mental health issues as much as possible. I saw a Facebook post that said: ‘Police are great at dealing with other people’s problems and talking to other people, we’re just not great at talking to each other’. We need to start doing that.
“I think that, thankfully, the macho culture is dying down, so officers are more happy to talk. The force is buckling in terms of dealing with officers with mental health, and we as a Federation are trying to help out as much as possible. We refer several officers a month to counselling that we provide ourselves.
“Although it’s not nice to hear these officers are going through it, they are at least coming forward and asking for help, whereas five years ago they probably wouldn’t have. I think that’s indicative of this shift in terms of attitude out there.”
Steve said he thought they were only seeing the tip of the iceberg with this issue.
He added: “Our Assistant Chief Constable, David Hartley, is a massive advocate of helping officers with mental health welfare. We just need to try to turn this ship around. Our force is hampered by its finances, but it’s genuinely passionate about mental health; we’re working together on this.”
Steve said if officers were struggling then they should talk to their colleagues or the Federation.
He said: “They can speak to us, they can email us, we’ll get back in touch with them. Everything will be treated in confidence. If they don’t feel they want to speak to their line manager because they’re worried about being restricted, then come and speak to us about it. We’ve got services at the Federation, nationally and locally, so just get in touch.”
In South Yorkshire, all supervisors have been offered training in mental health support, awareness and recognition.
Steve said: “We encourage supervisors to have that chat every so often. To say: ‘Look, is everything alright?’. It might be alright then, but then if something does start going wrong they’ll remember they’ve been asked, they’ll remember how approachable the supervisor was, and then they’ll come back. The whole message here is that it’s good to talk.”