28 Acquisition International - Non-Profit Organisation Awards 2023 May23672 Best Police Wellbeing Support Organisation 2023 - UK COPS Minds is a non-profit organisation aiming to end the stigma of mental health within policing, and support and enrich the lives of police officers. It wants to help reduce the impact of mental health issues arising from policing duties, and support access to counselling and other practical assistance. OPS Minds was founded by Trevor Sherwood, a journalist who has led a number of successful projects within the charitable sector concentrated on loneliness, anxiety, and depression. He strongly believes that a supportive and collaborative approach brings people together, and effectively assists those needing the most support. With COPS Minds, his intention is to support and enrich police officers’ lives, as well as police staff and retired police officers, with support that helps reduce the negative impact of mental health issues both arising from and associated with their policing duty. Trevor also plays a key role within the NHS and Community transformation project, redesigning the way those who are facing a mental health crisis are supported. He occupies key roles within Health and Wellbeing boards, and has developed the UK’s first prescription coffee, which can be offered by mental health nurses, nurse practitioners, GPs and social prescribers. Trevor knows that not every approach works equally as well for everyone, so charities and organisations need to work together to find the optimal way of reaching out. COPS Minds was inspired by the insights of a personal friend of Trevor’s, who is a serving police officer suffering from work related ill mental health. Although there is support out there, COPS Minds felt there was more that could be done to help officers. It discovered that Police Officers were generally only allowed access to 6 support sessions in relation to the job. What’s even more worrying is that it identified officers off work with job related mental health issues who were majorly concerned about facing the prospect of half pay, and the risk of being medically discharged if the limited number of sessions wasn’t enough. COPS Minds wanted to be able to offer police officers access to more support sessions to underpin good mental health and wellbeing. This is primarily to support officers who have dedicated their lives to supporting others, in being able to support themselves and return back to work in due time. C Research gathered by COPS Minds has shown that support for officers in crisis is painstakingly slow, with nothing feeling in any way instant. It can take a lot of time from when officers go off on the sick, to get to the stage where a supervisor fills in support forms, or even for welfare to be contacted. It seems to appear that even though the level of support through counselling is good for police officers, the journey to get this support is slow and laborious. It can take 6 weeks, and that’s only if the person in question isn’t lost in the system. Something that can happen only too easily, especially if the right information hasn’t been provided at the right time. A job such as policing can come with extremely stressful triggers such as child deaths, suicides, fatal road traffic accidents, and stabbings. Dealing with such issues at work can understandably cause mental health related problems for officers, and to then have their wages dropped to half pay is likely to intensify the stress and ill mental health they are suffering from. COPS Minds aims to assist by providing further access to counselling and treatment programs through the provision of small grants, enabling officers to access treatment and support privately. COPS Minds support staff are a team united through a supportive culture that puts wellbeing first. It looks for friendly and supportive team members when recruiting new employees, people who are able to demonstrate kindness, actively listen, and adopt a supportive style. The challenges the company face predominantly involve breaking down the stigma of mental health within policing, knowing that we live in a world where officers find it difficult to both ask for and accept support. With its admirable aim to improve the wellbeing and wellness of serving police officers, police staff, and retired police officers, it is clear to see why COPS Minds has been awarded Best Police Wellbeing Support Organisation 2023 – UK. Well done to this laudable non-profit company, and all the tremendous good work it’s doing. “The support police officers are offered is good, and the police treatment centre can support officers a great deal with injuries which are physical, or for wellbeing. But this is not there for every officer as it’s a private subscription that has to be opted into.” Company: Cops Minds Web Address: www.copsminds.co.uk Contact Name: Trevor Sherwood
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