Developing resilience interventions for emergency service responders—a view from the field

IMPACT

Emergency responders face stressful and traumatic challenges which can cause significant mental health problems, including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. These conditions can reduce the capacity of emergency services to serve and protect their communities. The UK’s National Police Wellbeing Service adopted an evidence-based approach to building the resilience of its officers and staff to deal with major traumatic events as well as everyday stressors. The stress and trauma-informed care programme are being rolled out nationally. The programme includes education for officers and staff, supervisor training and a stepped trauma intervention model designed to reduce distress and trauma.

ABSTRACT

Police, as members of the family of Emergency Services Responders (ESRs), deal with multiple traumas. Preparing ESRs to deal effectively with traumatic incidents is complex; coping with the aftermath may be even more demanding. This article unravels the complexity of providing guidance on how ESRs anticipate, understand and prepare themselves and their colleagues to cope with daily mental and physical challenges. The work of ESRs can be rewarding and deliver satisfaction in terms of meaning and purpose; it also has the power to destroy an ESR’s resilience to carry out such work. The emotional, compassionate and empathetic capacities of effective ESRs can be tested to their limits during and after traumatic incidents. This article is situated in a world emerging from the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic. It provides a practitioner’s view of the complexity of the work of ESRs to provoke further research in this field of study.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• emergency services responders
• major incident response
• policing
• resilience
• trauma
• well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.