Police Officers Surveyed on Proposed Peer Support Mental Health Program

The over two thousand police officers across the country are being asked to help shape a new initiative aimed at protecting their own mental well-being.  A Peer Support Program survey has recently been circulated within the Belize Police Department to determine how many officers would be willing to participate in a confidential support network for fellow colleagues.  The survey forms part of groundwork being done before a formal proposal is submitted to the Commissioner of Police and senior command for approval to activate the program. Officers are being asked not only whether they would participate, but also whether they are willing to uphold strict confidentiality principles, a key component of peer-to-peer support systems.  The initiative is a personal effort by Sergeant Leon Ferguson of the National Training Academy. Speaking with Love News, Ferguson explained that participation from rank-and-file officers is critical before the proposal moves forward.

Leon Ferguson, Police National Training Academy: “Recently we had sent out a survey across the Belize Police Department that should help us to understand, to create a safe place for our police officer to provide peer support for our officers. So I’m hoping to get as much information I can from this training so I can take it back to our department for us to create this safe place for police officers to come in and speak about any PTSD, any stuff they are going through. We just want to create a safe place for them. A few years I’ve heard the Commissioner of Police have spoken about the Lotus. It is an office that police officers can go. But we are trying to expand the Lotus office across the country. You know, so we can have that police officer can say, I can get up today and I need to speak to somebody, I can go and see somebody in Dangriga, somebody in Corozal. So that is what we are trying to do to build on the Lotus program and create a peer support program for the Belize Police Department. It’s been developing. We are sending a survey out and now we are waiting for the responses that we can provide this information to our Commissioner Police and then send it on forward to see what we can do. Right now the Lotus, it is there, it is there for them to go in at any time to go and speak to the counselor there. One of the things again, confidentiality, we have put it in different phases and confidentiality could mean full confidentiality or confidentiality if we see that this person may cause some kind of threat or problem to the larger public so we can make it mandatory for them so that’s one thing we’re hoping to clarify in our survey as we go along.”

Ferguson says the program is designed to provide officers with a safe avenue to talk through stress, trauma and personal challenges encountered on the job, issues that often go unaddressed in law enforcement culture.  He added that feedback gathered from the questionnaires will help shape the final presentation to police leadership and determine how the program will operate if approved.  The proposed peer support network is expected to become another tool to safeguard the mental welfare of police officers, particularly as they routinely face high-stress and traumatic situations in the line of duty.