MENTAL HEALTH


The nature of our work is incredibly challenging


Chief Constable Andy Rhodes joined Lancashire Police in 1991, spending much of his early career in local policing, firearms public order and search. He retired this year but continues to lead on the National Police Wellbeing Service, known as Oscar Kilo.


He said: “I always talk about


how things creep up on you, and certainly I had a bit of a crash in my personal life. The job is just full on. It wasn’t an environment where you would talk about struggling at home with a relationship issue. In my case, I wasn’t even aware of this stress that was building up. “I have had poor sleep for my


entire life. When I’m stressed this just gets even worse. “I look at some of the young


officers and the jobs they are going to – it would be abnormal not to be affected. There is a lot of really sad stuff that officers see every day – awful stuff. “The first thing to say is that it’s


OK to be affected because that’s a normal human response. But what the organisation has got to do is help officers if they start to struggle because, from time to time, our colleagues will.” Oscar Kilo has launched a


series of webinars and podcasts to help officers recognise the signs of emotional struggle in themselves and others and provides knowledge on how to support themselves and colleagues.


I


EVERY OFFICER HAS THEIR SCARS


For Mental Health Awareness Week, former Met Commander John Sutherland shared his personal experience of ill-health retirement and what he has learnt during his recovery.


retired from policing three years ago but, while you can take the man out of policing, it’s a whole lot harder to take policing out of the man. The simple truth is that I still love the Job – and I still love the incredible women and men who do the Job. It’s just that I’m not able to do it myself anymore.


One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that it would be impossible to do the job of a police officer for any length of time and to remain unaffected by the things we see and do. When I joined policing in the early


1990s, we didn’t talk about trauma. It was just the Job. We didn’t talk about the inevitable pressures and strains or the impact on our own mental health. We might have blown off steam over a few drinks at the end of the shift or resorted to dark humour. I carried on for more than 20 years. And then I broke. I had a massive nervous breakdown and ended up being off work for more than seven months. I made it back eventually but never to full operational duties. I was medically retired from the Met in 2018. These days, I have the privilege of


speaking to groups of officers and staff up and down the country about what happened to me. And I always finish with three lessons I’ve learned - three things that helped me get better and stay well: First, we live in a world that – lockdown


notwithstanding – is moving far too fast. We want our food faster, our broadband faster, our transport connections faster. I have had to rediscover the lost art of rest – the ability to slow down, switch off, unplug and let the world pass me by for a while. Second, when I first got sick, I was


referred for emergency counselling. I continued to see my therapist for more than five years. It remains one of the oldest truths of them all: it’s good to talk. Third, the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to take my anti- depressant medication. I’ve done the same every morning for the last eight years. I’m not ashamed of the fact. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of remarkable strength. If you want to talk to someone about


your mental health the Federation’s Welfare Support Programme is there to assist you and provide access to fully trained and accredited professionals.


23 I POLICE I JUNE 2021


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