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Setting Up Your Own Police Suicide Prevention Program
A NEW APPROACH TO MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE PREVENTION
It’s imperative that we recognize our officers need us to give them more than the tools and acronyms to help spot potential suicides and tips on where to seek help when they are in crisis.
It’s not “just” about suicide. What this means is that, as critical as our suicide prevention programs are, they are self-limiting. These programs were created in response to numbers. “There are too many police suicides.” “We need to reduce the police suicides.”
Recognizing that “numbers” are nothing more than the reflection of a far deeper problem in the ranks of law enforcement, we must find a way of not only caring for the suicidal/critical officer, but also tackle the root causes that got him there and find ways to keep him off that path.
The goal is to create a healthier workforce that benefits a department through the myriad cost-savings so evident to everyone: not only the savings from not having to replace dead officers, but fewer lawsuits and complaints, fewer cases of alcoholism and drug abuse involving officers, less sick leave, fewer divorces and depressed officers, fewer patrol car collisions, lessened chances of officer injuries and deaths from anxious and preoccupied officers, and more.
This will require a new perspective, one that takes into account all officers and addresses the present as well as an unpredictable future:
1. Increased/enhanced training at the academy and squad levels. 2. A program of voluntary, confidential annual “mental health checks” with a therapist.
3. Continued suicide prevention efforts.
4. Critical Incident Stress Debriefing programs for officers who have clearly been impacted by some sudden (generally critical) trauma that is visibly identifiable within the first 24 hours. This must be clearly identified as a mental health program within the department, not a "suicide prevention" program.
5. A system to assist surviving families of suicides. It is time to stop hiding suicides in the basement as a "family secret." Departments are known to shun surviving families, refuse officers an opportunity to attend services in uniform, and envelope the tragedy in a veil of shame. This must end. We are better than that, more honorable.
6. A policy by which information on police suicides can be reported to the public/media without evasion, shame or coverup.
7. LINE OF DUTY SUICIDES: A followup procedure by which to determine whether a suicide was in the line of duty (work related/due to trauma).
DEFINITIONS
DSM-IV Definition of PTSD.
Layman’s definition of PTSD
Complex/Cumulative PTSD
Definition of PTSD, Psychology Today
FBI Law Enforcement Statistics
Therapist Certification Levels, Psychology Today
SYMPTOMS / WARNING SIGNS
When Job Stress Becomes Disabling
A selection of free downloadable courses on PTSD, with voice and power point:
How is PTSD Measured?
Assessment and Treatment of Patients With Suicidal Behaviors, American
Psychiatric Association
Symptoms of PTSD
Suicide Warning Signs
SUICIDE
FBI Line of Duty Deaths 2007
Understanding Police Suicide by John Violanti
Study Shows Suicide A Greater Danger To Police Officers Than Homicide, 1996
Suicides Among Police Officers, ERLEND HEM, M.D., ANNE MARIE BERG, M.A
Suicides Among Police Officers, John Violanti (Rebuttal to Erlend)
FIGURES FOR GENERAL POPULATION
US Population Suicide Rate 2004
FBI Law Enforcement Statistics
INTERVENTION AND TREATMENT
Peer Support Officer Programs
International Association of Chiefs of Police Peer Support Guidelines
Ratified in 2006 by the IACP Police Psychological Services Section Boston, Massachusetts
Treatment Methods in Therapy (Psychology Today)
The Effects of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the officer and the family.
Actions for Suicidal Behavior/Ideation
Evaluation and Treatment of Patients with Suicidal Ideation
AmericanAcademy of Family Physicians
How to find a good therapist
Questions to ask a therapist
How Can Therapy Help? Psychology Today
Twelve Step Groups as a resource
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