Steps in place to protect Sudbury's 'blue line'

Mental health resources for Sudbury police Police union says the force has come a long way towards eliminating mental health stigma, but more to be done.

SUDBURY — It can be tough to work as a police officer, the job has its challenges and difficult moments, and no one knows that better than Greater Sudbury Police Service Chief Paul Pedersen.

Pedersen has been making mental health a focus for the service in recent months.

He had asked, at one point, for a five per cent increase to his budget to help the Internet Child Exploitation/Cyber Crime Unit in dealing with some of their increase in workload and the difficult images they’re seeing.

Detective Sergeant Blair Ramsay is supervisor of that unit.

"Due to the nature with what we deal with in our investigations, it’s pretty traumatic and the things that we see daily are traumatic so yeah, wellness is number one,” said Ramsay.

He says “I think with us it’s a matter of keeping an eye on the staff to make sure that they’re getting enough rest … to really know them as well as you can so you can know if they’re having a bad five minutes."

He adds "I know my staff well enough that I can see if they need a break... and say let’s detach for a little bit and take a mental health break.”

Ramsay says they do ‘self-checks’ with a psychologist every year. There are programs in place and they’ve also improved their filters so they don’t have to look at as much or only have to view an image one time.

“Our mission is to protect children and I think when you have that time of mission you’ll go through anything you need to, to get that done,” Ramsay says.

It’s messaging like this that the Sudbury Police Association is hoping its membership takes to heart.

“It’s a very hot topic right now with all the police services and police associations in Ontario,” said the Sudbury Police Association’s Ryan Hutton.

“The main thing is education, learning how to change the mentality of 30, 40, 50 years of policing and understand how we need to change as people and how we need to get away from that persona of police officers being able to handle anything and everything at work and at home, we are people and we need help just like everyone else needs help.” Hutton adds.

He says it’s a daily thing for the association, and while It’s no secret that at one point there might have been a stigma, he believes progress has been made but there is still more work to be done.

“I grew up the son of a police officer, my Dad was in the OPP for 30 years and he never talked about it and when I became a police officer he never prepared me for it, Hutton says.

With no carreer preperation Hutton says, "it was a big suck it up and deal with it and this is what we do,” but he adds. “That is changing with help from associations and help from services that are bringing in wellness officers … to talk about what is affecting you and what you can do to deal with it.”

One of those officers working to help police navigate through their issues is James Jefferson, the Greater Sudbury Police Wellness Officer.

Jefferson, who works with the rank and file both in and out of the gym, has been helping officers live their best lives through mind, body and spirit.

“Wellness means all encompassing, reaching out to members,” said Jefferson.

“It’s exponentially more challenging, with day-to-day psychological afflictions that they’re dealing with, for things that they see, hear and experience. Things to look out for is you’re shying away from your everyday life, you’re insulating yourself in your home, you’re not talking and reaching out to people. The main thing is you’re not being transparent and honest yourself.” Jefferson explains....

Inspector Dan Despatie says mental health has been a priority of the Greater Sudbury Police Service and will be moving forward.

“The message is everyone matters, being kind to each other and look out for each other and listen, listen and be observant and know that there is help out there, we’re all in this together,” said Despatie.

In the end, officials say they hope this will provide members with more resilience and giving them an outlet in where they are able to come forward with their feelings and concerns.