EXCLUSIVE: Blue Light ‘Network’ launches across North East.
A North East police sergeant who was suicidal at work has welcomes new project to help blue light staff speak up about mental health.
A new project has launched in the North East to improve mental health support for emergency service staff.
Tyneside Northumberland Mind have spearheaded the move, they’ve secured £100,000 to run the project for one year from today.
Police, Ambulance, Fire and Search and Rescue services in Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Sunderland, County Durham and Darlington will benefit from the pilot.
It’s as research shows 87.57% of personnel said they had experienced stress and poor mental health whilst working for Blue Light services.
The new project will include improving workplace wellbeing, building resilience, providing information and challenging stigma, with more training for line managers on identifying and supporting those suffering from poor mental health.
It’s hoped the networks will seek to enable greater joint working and knowledge sharing across the services and sectors.
Andrew Howie, Finance and Commercial Manager at Tyneside Northumberland Mind, said:
“It has been proven through research that any weakness has meant that those people have been or can be overlooked for promotion or their colleagues feel less able to rely on them. What we’d like to do is to make sure that when people do have a mental health problem that that stigma is gone.”
“What we’re trying to do is remove that stigma so that if somebody does have a mental health problem they are able to talk about it and they are able to get the help that they need.”
Claire Pegg, Disability Support Association at Northumbria Police, said:
“We’ll be working with the Tyne and Wear Fire Service and Durham and all of the other services to look at the best practices approached to supporting mental health.”
“It was really important that we’re looking at it from those grassroots, that there’s peer to peer support and colleagues are looking out for each other. That really needs to expand out and that’s something were really looking towards increasing, talking about mental health.
Sergeant Ed Simpson, from North Yorkshire Police, suffered depression after a traumatic incident on duty. He’s welcomed the move. He said:
“Cops are like that, you try to get through it because you’re not used to giving in. It’s a bit of a downfall really when you’re battling away and battling away and refusing to give in… That’s what I was basically doing and one day my body just went ‘you need to stop’.”
“The worst it got was I was getting in the car in the morning; I wanted to die before I get to work. I was hoping for a car to drive into me and kill me or I was hoping to see something that maybe I’d have to get out and help with and I’d die in the process.”
“A lot of time and money is spent on training police officers in how to defend themselves and defend others, it is helmets and stuff. But when I look back and think what was I giving in terms of protecting your own sanity… Nothing.”
For more information on the Blue Light Network, visit: