The North Bay Police Association has taken steps to help ensure the mental wellbeing of its members.
“It is becoming more and more prevalent that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is affecting our members,” said forensic identification officer Ivan Ryman on behalf of the association.
“So in order to rapidly treat people who have been exposed to a traumatic incident, we’re going to have Kelly Morgan, a psychotherapist on retainer so that we can get rapid, professional assistance for these people rather then delaying until some point when they can do peer support or a debriefing.”
As it now stands, there are internal members who will address the traumatic incidents with other members.
“But it has become noticed that we need professional assistance rapidly to help people get back together and back to work rather then being off for extended periods.”
Ryman says over the years, exposure to these incidents can have an accumulative effect.
“Not necessarily catastrophic incidents but disturbing incidents. I think in the past people internalized these problems and the symptoms came out later in other ways. We understand that PTSD is real, and we want to take action early in the process rather then later.”
Police Chief Scott Tod commended the association for what he called a “fantastic” opportunity for members to have immediate access to mental health care.
Tod says it will complement the other services the police service provides.
“The association on their own has gone ahead and entered into an agreement with a private provider in the community to offer psychological services to our members that are
needed in a time of crisis and the trauma members are experiencing,” said Tod.
The police chief has noticed that the amount of time lost due to post-traumatic stress and occupational stress injury has been steadily increasing over the three and a half years since joining the North Bay Police Service.
“There is a noticeable increase across the province and most likely the country in regard to occupational stress injuries and post-traumatic stress injuries that are occurring among police services personnel,” said Tod.
“I heard a psychologist speak one day who said the average police officer will experience 600 times the amount of traumatic events that a citizen, not a police officer, would experience in our society and that can be compounded up to 1,000 times. So, I think when you look at that totality of traumatic events, it is a serious health concern that we are now actively engaged in, monitoring and looking at in determining from best research what are the paths forward in regard to treatment.”
Deputy Police Chief Michael Daze says the increase in PTSD numbers is a challenge for all police services.
“It is a challenge to try and deal with and try to ensure that we’re able to do that preventative measure which is really important which sometimes hasn’t been there historically,” said Daze.
“We haven’t recognized the extent of PTSD and as more information comes to light it allows us to look forward and say “what are we able to do for our members and how do we put things like peer support programs in place to try and minimize any of that trauma in a very hard environment to work in.”
Association members will be able to access this added support almost immediately.
The association will pay for the additional service through its membership dues.
