SOUTH Yorkshire Police Federation says it is on hand to help officers who may be struggling with their mental health after worrying new figures show the impact it is having on officers across the country.<\/p>\n
Official stats have revealed nearly 10,000 officers in England and Wales had to take time away from the frontline to deal with stress, anxiety and PTSD in the past year.<\/p>\n
In South Yorkshire, 171 officers reported mental health symptoms, forcing them away from their duties.<\/p>\n
Thankfully the stigma around talking about mental health in policing is starting to fall away, according to South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Steve Kent.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cPeople are starting to come forward and talk with more confidence because of the things that we\u2019re putting out there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have got this underlying stress issue which is a major problem, but it\u2019s more of an accepted subject for people to say, \u2018actually I need to take a bit of time out\u2019, whereas in the past cops might not have done that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m currently going through something called Street Skills, which means I\u2019m pointing out our services and pointing out the things that we do to officers at their training days every three months or so.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe offer counselling outside of the force, and we refer people to that, so there are help and options for officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result, people do start coming to us and saying they think their mate on shift or a constable on their shift is struggling or a supervisor comes to us and tells us they\u2019ve got somebody struggling that needs that bit of intervention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when we try and step in as much as we can with the resources we\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alongside the Federation\u2019s support, Steve says officers can access a force app to provide mental health support while they are out on the frontline.<\/p>\n
He explained: \u201cThe force is extremely proactive about dealing with mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still not perfect with it yet, we\u2019ve got a lot of learning to do, but the force is committed to investing in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an app called Back-Up Buddy, which is designed for officers to have on their phones which gives them guidance and tips and that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Decades of cuts have made the job tougher, but Steve said he is hopeful getting more officers out on the beat will help ease the burden being placed on his colleagues.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cSince the cuts we\u2019ve seen the difficulty of the job increase. We\u2019ve been almost at rock bottom over the last couple of years, and while things are picking up in that area we are still in a situation where we need to get a grip on mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident things have been put in place to do that slowly, and obviously we\u2019ve got a role to play in that as the Federation, through the services we officer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just until those numbers [of officers] are back in the force there\u2019s still going to be an enormous strain on officers for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n