The importance of supporting staff with Depression…
Could better Mental Health Awareness and Strategy prevented Police dogs death?
Our view…
You may have heard that earlier this year PC Mark Johnson of Nottinghamshire Police received a six month conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £2500 costs for the deaths of two police dogs Jay-Jay and Jet who were left in his van without ventilation in 29.3 degree heat last year.
The sentence for Johnson was not as lengthy as it could have been after it emerged he had been suffering from depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. It was identified that his employers could have done more to support Johnson with his poor mental health.
This case raises important considerations for employers. Mental ill health can be easily ‘brushed off’ by managers until something devastating happens as with the Johnson case. Being reactive to mental ill health can often be a mistake; we believe employers need to set a policy, communicate it and raise awareness to staff of how to apply it. Managers especially need to have a grasp of how to have meaningful dialogue with staff about mental ill health.
But were others factors at play here? We think so. Large uniformed institutions such as the Police can be victim to a perpetuation of a ‘macho’ type culture where not showing a vulnerable side is the norm. The consequences? People bottle up issues, refuse to acknowledge that they may have a problem and managers get away with not tackling issues and the organisation removes the opportunity for support and positive intervention techniques by managers.
Now we are not saying that all Police forces do this and we are sure there will be some excellent examples out there of support strategies for staff with mental health issues but we think more employers need to be waking up to the fact that their staff are human and that the old ‘leave your problems at the door’ philosophy of management is exactly what it is – old.
What is your organisation doing to get teams resilient against mental ill health?
