Stress Awareness Month: Help is out there for officers who are struggling

8 April 2021

During their careers, each police officer is likely to encounter between 400 to 600 traumatic events. Most citizens will experience between three or four in their lifetime.

April is #StressAwarenessMonth and Surrey Police Federation has outlined how help is out there for officers who are struggling.

Nationally, nearly 10,000 police officers took time off due to stress, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder in the past year.

PFEW’s January 2021 Demand, Capacity and Welfare Survey revealed that almost 80% of officers said they have struggled with their mental health and wellbeing over the past 12 months.

Mel Warnes, Chair of Surrey Police Federation, said: “Policing is a stressful job. Wellbeing of officers is a Force responsibility and must be taken seriously. An Employee Assistance Programme is available to employees through the Force. There is no need for any referral process through the Occupational Health department and an individual can call them direct. This is independent to the Force.

“There are also Wellbeing leads across the Force in each department who feed into the Force Wellbeing Lead identifying good wellbeing initiatives.”

Mel added: “Wellbeing is spoken about a lot in Force, but many officers feel there is more that can be done. It is important to speak about how you are feeling and support each other. Everyone should be thinking about wellbeing as a theme throughout everything and become something that is natural rather than something additional to think about.

“It shouldn’t matter where you work in the Force, your wellbeing is important. There is no quick fix to the stressful element of this unique job, but the Force need to ensure they are doing as much as they can for officers feeling the stresses of the job.”  

Officers in need of support can also see more about the Mind Blue Light Programme here https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/campaigns/blue-light-programme/

The Stress Management Society have also created a free Individual Stress Test https://www.stress.org.uk/individual-stress-test/ where individuals can receive a stress score and some personalised recommendations for managing this.

Police Mutual have also shared a handy document about managing stress which can be found here.