Federation hails maternity drop-in session’s success

RETURNING to work after the maternity leave was one of the major topics and concerns at a drop in session for new or expectant parents hosted by Essex Police Federation.

Monty Montgomery, federation secretary, organised the “successful” session over the summer attended by 23 female officers and staff “wanting to talk about a wide range of issues”. The success of the first session in the south of the county is likely to lead to others, Mr Montgomery said.

He added: “Most conversation revolved around returning to work after the maternity leave… and it became apparent that there were some shocking issues around maternity in so much as that people are out of sight out of mind.

“There is no contact from the force, no contact by supervisors and we even had one lady who turned up and I asked her what she wanted and she said she just wanted to know where she was going back to work to.”

Mr Montgomery said that two members of the force’s human resources department attended to the session, describing the session as “very useful.”

He said: “They are working at putting something in place along the lines of what we do with officers who are off sick, so [those on maternity leave] get a phone call from their supervisor every eight days, every 28 days, and that is recorded. So that officers are not being excluded.”

Mr Montgomery said he hopes to run a similar session in the north of the county over the next two months. Partners of officers and staff and their children are also invited.

“The plan is that we will alternate north, south, possibly west, hopefully every two months or three months, depending on people’s availability,” said Mr Montgomery. “We will hold them away from police stations because it’s much more relaxed. It was very productive. It was really, really good. But there was a real need for it.”

Mr Montgomery said he got the idea for the drop-ins after being impressed by a similar session from Hertfordshire Police Federation.

“We certainly got a lot of very good feedback,” concluded Mr Montgomery.