Nick Hurd's Support for Trauma Resilience in UK Policing
Dr Jess and PDT CEO Gill Scott-Moore were pleased to contribute to the committee's inaugural discussion to address specific issues around reforming police wellbeing. We presented the case for new standards for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnoses to tackle gross inflation of PTSD reporting through non-clinical diagnoses and self-report and highlighted the critical need for improvements in post-incident support to better facilitate healthy trauma processing across the service. Jess also explained that new neuropsychological research shows that trauma exposure in healthy individuals impacts on cognitive function and that we need to investigate and understand how this impact affects opportunities for resilience, especially in high-risk roles. The committee were urged to remember that without bringing awareness of personal cognitive function to the level of the individual officer or staff, we cannot expect individuals to make informed decisions to engage in and commit to the wellbeing interventions and opportunities available to them. The need for a culture change toward emotional literacy around mental health in the service permeated the session. An agreement was made around the table to reconvene to form a working group to which Jess, Gill, and colleagues look forward to contributing.