Suffolk Police putting welfare at the heart of Response Policing Week

25 June 2024

Suffolk Police are putting welfare at the centre of Response Policing Week of Action, which is running this week (starting on Monday 24 June).

Each of the Force’s response PCs, sergeants, inspectors and specials is being sent a welfare kit as a thank-you for the role they do.

Sergeant Jo Miah, Suffolk Police Federation member, came up with the idea last year and it proved so popular that the welfare bags are being distributed again this Response Policing Week of Action.

She is being helped with the initiative by Sergeant Rebecca McCarthy.

Response Policing

Jo said: “I think Response Policing Week of Action is a really good way to highlight the difficult job that they do.

“Response officers face a lot of stresses and strains.

“They are usually the first on the scene, which means they see and deal with a lot of things.

“They have a sheer variety of work to deal with and have to know a bit about everything.

“This is a little something to show we care about them and something to acknowledge the hard work they do.”

Sergeant Rebecca McCarthy (left) and Sergeant Jo Miah (right).

The bags have the phrase ‘putting welfare at the centre of Response Policing Week’ in them and then a list of the items inside – sweets, pen, lip balm, fun-size treat, sanitiser, breakfast bar and brew.

A letter from each item has been highlighted to spell the word ‘welfare’.

The bags also contain welfare-related information on things such as the employee assistance programme (EAP) and Oscar Kilo, the National Police Wellbeing Service.

Courage

“We’ve got 680 of them going out to response officers this year,” said Jo. “It’s just a little something to show our appreciation.”

The Response Policing Week of Action is held nationally and is spearheaded by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).

It aims to celebrate the professionalism and courage of response officers and is also an opportunity to recognise the challenges they face and consider the future and development of a key role within policing.