(St. John’s, NL), May 7, 2021 – The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) is shifting from a passive to an active approach with regards safety and wellness within the organization.

Mental health week certainly sparks the conversation of safety and wellness in our communities as it relates to our mental health. Regardless of whether or not we have a mental illness, our mental health is something we can protect and nurture. Everyone deserves to feel well, and understanding our emotions is a part of feeling well. Bottling up our emotions can make them grow or come out in other ways, and not reacting to something negative that happens at work could end up making you more likely to have a reaction later.

The RNC’s Safety and Wellness Strategist, Sam Burke, is very open about the existence of a stigma, and policing has its own unique sub-culture on that front. Police officers, and other first responders, have experiences for which there is no playbook, and the impact of these experiences are met with the pervasive reluctance of the policing culture. Burke and the RNC team have set in motion to leverage all levels of the current more passive approach to wellness, while implementing an active approach as a means to battle the stigma through peer to peer engagement. Burke says, “Increasing accessibility is an example of an active method to diminishing stigma within the walls here at the RNC. Our new programs, such as the Chaplaincy Program, are focused on peer to peer support, and have been identified as critical aspects of our plan to establish a response to, and management of, critical incidents when they occur. My existence as the Safety and Wellness Strategist at the RNC resulted from a recognized need for a more robust process related to overall wellness within this organization, and that shift has begun”.

That shift, so to speak, has seen the introduction of Support Dog Service, Equine Therapy for first responders, the Chaplaincy Program, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Training, Mindfulness training through renowned course developer Andrew Safer, Crisis Intervention training, and leveraging all levels of support of the Employee Assistance Program. This active approach is about engaging multiple means to the same end goals; diminishing stigma, and a safe and healthy police service. Partnerships with national organizations, such as Wounded Warriors, and with groups dedicated to the safety and health of police services, such as the Law Enforcement Occupational Safety and Health Association, provide RNC members with access to wellness based resources from across the country.

Burke makes no question that the vision for psychological health and wellbeing at the RNC will require immediate and ongoing processes to respond to, and manage, psychological hazards. Burke says, “A paradigm shift toward the treatment of mental health injuries is required, and should align with how physical health injuries are addressed and treated in society. At the end of the day, an injury is an injury, and for the best possible outcome, early identification and treatment is the gold standard. With collaboration as the backbone, we are making strides toward this vision.” The framework of this health and wellness strategy has been developed in consultation with the RNC executive, Department of Justice and Public safety executive, and the RNC Association executive. As we continue the rollout of this initiative, the RNC is focused on a team approach to foster an environment of collective contribution to prevention of injury and the wellness of all employees.

Upon the release of the RNC corporate plan in 2018, Chief Joe Boland was clear, “mental health is the number one issue facing our community today”. Since that time, officers are now trained in Crisis Intervention, we now have a Mental Health Mobile Crisis Response Team on site to respond to crisis where and when it occurs, and Sam Burke was introduced to the police service as the Safety and Wellness Strategist. The RNC still has leaps to make, and there is still much work to do, but we now have a path.

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Cst. James Cadigan  #775
Media Relations Officer
Royal Newfoundland Constabulary
media@rnc.gov.nl.ca
(709) 729-8658