‘We need to be more proactive in recognising declining mental health in others’
18 May 2020
Officers’ mental health is significantly impacted upon by general welfare considerations and their treatment by line managers and senior leadership, says the chair of West Mercia Police Federation.
Sarah Cooper has admitted to having her own battles with mental health after a ‘prank’ at the start of her career and is speaking out as part of efforts to promote Mental Health Awareness Week which runs from today until 24 May. She is urging officers to speak up if they are suffering mentally and stresses that it’s not a sign of weakness to admit you need help.
The Federation branch is also re-launching its social media accounts to coincide with the awareness week which is led by the Mental Health Foundation.
“Mental Health Awareness Week is a fitting reflection of why I chose to stand for the post of Federation chair in the first place,” says Sarah. “Mental health awareness is a subject that is extremely important to me and it is my belief and the experience of many officers that I represent that positive mental health in the workplace is significantly impacted by general welfare considerations and treatment by line managers and senior leadership.
“I have personally had my own battles with mental health, instigated by an initiation ‘prank’ in my first five weeks of being tutored. The incident left me with a deep rooted fear of dead bodies that I still carry with me today and one that has hugely influenced my career choices in an effort to self-manage what to some would be an irrational fear.
“The one thing that I know is that this was not something that happened to me overnight. It was a slow creeping process that changed the way I was able to function as a response officer. I would dread my call sign being said over the radio in case I was being directed to a sudden death. I was unable to walk past undertakers when walking the town alone at night. I had to ask colleagues to assist me with MISPER house searches just in case there was a dead body in the house and I was terrified of opening the cell hatches in custody in case someone had taken their own life.
“This fear ate away at me and started to impact on my home life, I began to have the same irrational fears in my home and my mood and ability to cope with normal life declined. Eventually, things became so bad that I recall driving home from work in tears and decided that my career as a police officer was over.”
Luckily, Sarah was able to speak up and, with support, was able to get back on track with her policing career. At the time, the Force had peer supporters in place and Sarah contacted an officer who had trained her to say that she wanted to leave the police.
“The officer was PC Marie Harrison, she was amazing and reassured me. She told me to go to the doctor and get signed off and not to make any quick decisions. Just talking about my fears helped; I no longer felt so alone, or so ‘crazy’,” Sarah recalled.
Sarah was off work for four weeks and underwent counselling. Her fears were made known to line managers but, unfortunately, on returning to work, she found the adopted approach was to get her to see as many dead bodies as possible. It did not help.
“I vividly remember one occasion my sergeant sending me into a room with a badly bloated dead body while he munched on a bacon sandwich outside the room. Luckily for me, paramedics in attendance immediately recognised the trauma I was suffering and took control,” says Sarah.
“I was also supported through this period by an amazing shift who felt responsible for what had happened to me and would support me by dealing with the ‘body’ part of any sudden death while I dealt with the family. I think I existed through this part of my career but the fear was always there niggling away and eventually I had to make the decision that response work was not something that I could any longer continue with.
“This was a real blow to me as I was an advanced driver and loved my work but even eight years into my career the constant fear of what I would face in a shift was making me ill and I needed to choose another path in order to avoid what was still a significant fear.”
Now with 23 years’ service under her belt, Sarah has returned to response policing a number of times throughout her career and experienced the same challenges and fears. The most significant of these was during the people movement plan when she was posted to Ledbury.
She recognised the remote location would prevent her being able to ‘manage’ in the way she had previously. Sarah began to notice huge changes in her behaviour at home. She was incredibly tearful and very quick to get angry at the smallest thing.
She explained: “I remember on one occasion just sobbing uncontrollably on the kitchen floor. Eventually, it occurred to me that this was my old demons coming back to haunt me. I went to my GP who said he believed that I was suffering with PTSD, I was signed off work with anxiety and stress and I began to try to negotiate with the Force regarding my posting to try to manage what was now a situation where my mental health was declining hugely.
“I needed support but what I was faced with was accusations by senior management that I was inventing a story to get me out of the posting I had been given.
“I was told by one inspector ‘if you’re saying you can’t deal with dead bodies then I suggest you get yourself ill-health retired’. The reaction and treatment of me by these ‘leaders’ was more devastating than the root cause of my illness. I was unable to communicate with work without crying and eventually I was unable to answer the phone at all for fear that it would be the inspector or chief inspector ready to question my integrity and honesty again.
“I was asked to attend a case conference but by this time I was so broken that I could not be in a room with these individuals. The Force had all the evidence regarding the history of my condition in my OH files but they chose to overlook this in favour of bullying tactics which left me feeling that I could never return to the job and the Force that I once loved.
“It would not be an exaggeration to say that at that time of my life I hated West Mercia Police and anything associated with it. I couldn’t bear to see a police car or watch anything associated with the police on TV. I could not go in or near a police station and I felt totally and utterly let down. No-one in the SMT were interested in listening to what I had to say, they had made up their mind that I was simply making excuses and that was it.
“Eventually, I met with someone in HR, with a Fed rep present and finally someone listened to what my issues were. I think the HR rep was actually quite horrified at my treatment and within a week a post had been found for me and I returned to work. In the end I was away from work, and suffering hugely, for nearly six months when in fact this was a situation that could have been resolved in a matter of weeks had someone been prepared to listen, understand and negotiate.
“It is from my own personal experience that I understand when officers say to me that they can’t answer the phone, or attend a meeting in a police station and in my role as a peer supporter and Fed rep I do all I can to educate those in management positions that this is not about an officer being ‘difficult’ this is the reality of suffering poor mental health related to the workplace.”
Sarah believes there is still a long way to go in in terms of recognising and supporting those with poor mental health in the workplace. She regularly speaks to officers who are afraid to ask for help or seek support through the organisation because they are concerned about being ‘labelled’ and that this will impact on promotion and development opportunities. She says this is completely unacceptable.
“In my experience quite the opposite is true, it is those who have suffered themselves and have an enhanced level of emotional intelligence that are most likely to recognise it in others and have the conversations that are needed to put in intervention at the earliest stage,” Sarah argues.
“We need to be more proactive in recognising declining mental health in others and the Force has invested in addressing this through the roll-out of mental health first aid training. This is a positive step but there is more work to do. In my experience of dealing with colleagues suffering in the workplace it is often not the job itself that causes poor mental health, but rather a lack of support and recognition of ‘trigger’ events or, blatant poor people and managerial skills that cause officers more distress than anything else they encounter.
“My plea to colleagues would be to please look out for each other and, if you feel someone just isn’t themselves, then start that conversation. It may feel awkward but so many of us will suffer in silence, or even not recognise it in ourselves.
“Also be self-aware and, if you feel that you are starting to decline, ask for help. We will be featuring support services later in the week. I now know when I am declining, I recently went through a spell of crying openly in public, usually in supermarkets. I know that this means that my ‘stress container’ is starting to overflow so I asked for help from welfare and counselling was set up for me.”
Sarah concludes: “The issues I have faced with my mental health have been hugely challenging personally and at times I have felt incredibly low and questioned my future in the police. However, I strongly believe that my experience means that I am far better placed to help others and this is something that I really value in my current role. My journey with my own mental health is ongoing and there are times where workplace or personal challenges have caused me to decline. It is not a sign of weakness to put your hand up and say ‘I’m struggling here’ and colleagues should never be in fear of doing this.”
Find out more about Mental Health Awareness Week.
