World Suicide Prevention Day: Support for officers' mental health

6 September 2024

A Hertfordshire Police Federation member is striving to improve the support for officers’ mental health following the devastating loss of a colleague to suicide.

Detective Chief Inspector Sam Khanna has spoken about the work he is doing around trauma and postvention, and in creating a working culture that has a positive impact on emotional wellbeing and mental health.

Sam has been moved by the death of Detective Constable Paul Ireland to suicide in 2022.

“No one had any idea he was struggling as much as he was, including his family, friends, and colleagues,” Sam said. “It was a massive shock to us all.

“People go through their mind every last conversation they had, did they miss any signs?

“We thought we had to make some good come out of such an awful thing and make sure no one else is ever in such a dark place.

“We have done a lot of work from that point around postvention and how to deal with issues.”

DCI Sam Khanna and Hertfordshire Police colleagues climbed Mount Snowdon in memory of DC Paul Ireland

Sam and a group of colleagues marked the one-year anniversary of Paul’s death with a climb up Mount Snowdon.

They raised more than £4,000 for the suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)

It’s hoped their efforts will help to raise awareness and bring about change in the numbers of officers who are dying by suicide.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that between 2011 and 2021 there were 210 police officers who died by suicide in England and Wales. That’s an average of 19 officers every year.

World Suicide Prevention Day

“It feels more prevalent in policing than in other areas of work so we wanted to change things and make ours a more open place to talk,” Sam said, who is speaking about the work ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day on 10 September.

“We’re trying to create that culture and environment where anyone has the confidence to put their hand up and say they’re not okay or they need some help.

“One to ones, for instance. We’ re all so busy it’s easy to do them by Teams or when you’re typing something out, but it’s making them meaningful.

“We’re encouraging people to leave the office, which I do with all my one-to-ones, unless there’s anything that needs to be documented, we go out walking and encourage others to do that.

“We’ve got benches outside so people can take a break from the office.

“We’ll have coffee vans come in so people have a chance to pop out and talk to each other.

“We’ve created a little corner of the office for people to have their lunch away from their desk, to read a book, or have a non-work conversation.

Wellbeing

“We do try to do wellbeing activities. We tried to think of an activity where everyone will join in and settled on a pub quiz.

“It’s an hour and a half to talk to different people and to forget about work.

“It’s all aimed at creating an environment that people are able to talk.

“Working in major crime, there needs to be the opportunity to talk to people, to have space when available.

“On the whole, people have bought into it.”

The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) is running a free webinar on World Suicide Awareness Day.

#AskTwice

Breaking the Silence: Conversations about mental health and suicide prevention is part of PFEW’s #AskTwice campaign takes place on 10 September from 10.30am.

The session aims to foster open conversations about mental health and provide support within policing and the community.

Find out more about the webinar and register on the PFEW website.

Sam highlighted another form of support that is available to officers in TRIM (trauma risk incident management), which aims to assess an officer’s response to a potentially traumatic incident.

“Many officers had heard of TRIM but didn’t really understand what it was so we got someone from the wellbeing team to talk about what they can offer,” he explained.

“She came to do an hour-long presentation and left a long time after because there was a steady stream of people who did want to talk to her, so our TRIM referral numbers have really grown.”

Mental health challenges

If officers have been affected by a suspected suicide, the Force’s Mental Health Policing Team has procedures in place to refer them to the CHUMS Bereavement service, in line with the Hertfordshire Suicide Prevention Strategy.

CHUMS is a charity which provides confidential, free emotional support, advice and guidance, support for children, support groups, and liaison with professionals on the person’s behalf.

Hertfordshire Police’s Wellbeing Team focuses on the wellbeing of officers and staff. Wellbeing champions have been trained to support people who are experiencing common mental health challenges.

They provide appropriate support along with internal and external information pathways for further assistance.

While the Wellbeing Team are not counsellors, they can provide a confidential listening ear, as well as support and information for teams, colleagues and supervisors of people who may be struggling with their wellbeing.

You can email the Force’s Wellbeing Team for more information.