ESSEX Police Federation is urging members look after themselves during the pandemic which has placed \u2018enormous\u2019 pressure on them and their families.<\/p>\n
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge hosted a video interview with a number of police officers and other frontline key workers recently many of whom say they are just too busy to think about their own mental health.<\/p>\n
The Duke said that was \u2018worrying to hear\u2019 and that he was worried the pandemic may leave many critical workers \u2018broken\u2019.<\/p>\n
Essex Police Federation Chair Laura Heggie said COVID had added another layer of stress on top of what is already an extremely challenging job.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s been recognised that there\u2019s enormous pressure on officers all the time and COVID has just compounded that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pressure also comes from worrying about their home lives, family lives and there\u2019s extra restrictions on people during their own downtime, which again is adding to people\u2019s stress levels, and mental health, because they\u2019re not necessarily able to escape in the ways that they normally would.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not able to go down the gym and take part in other activities they normally would, these are coping mechinisams.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo absolutely, there has been a rise and within Essex, there\u2019s been a push for officers to recognise it and a push towards our occupational health facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s vital officers reach out and don\u2019t just try and keep on going when they really can\u2019t Laura added.<\/p>\n
\u201cServices are advertised a lot more that they were, but it still takes that officer to reach out, we have to remember it\u2019s ok to not be ok\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSupervisors are trying to look after staff but as police officers, we are very good at hiding our emotions and just trying to carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n
A key way to try and get that all-important downtime is for officers to still take their annual leave even if holidays abroad and in the UK are off the agenda right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cRest days are there for a reason, they\u2019re there to rest. It\u2019s in the title,\u201d Laura said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have PPE fatigue, there\u2019s COVID fatigue, people are even starting to have overtime fatigue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has started to drop off and we are starting to struggle a little bit more to fill those overtime spaces that we weren\u2019t at the beginning.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are getting tired and just tired of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESSEX Police Federation is urging members look after themselves during the pandemic which has placed \u2018enormous\u2019 pressure on them and their families. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge hosted a\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":120594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161142"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162358,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161142\/revisions\/162358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/120594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}