Responding to trauma in policing 2020

Published 2 Dec 2020
Written by
Dr Ian Hesketh
Dr Noreen Tehrani
Reading time
15 mins

An updated guidance document ‘Responding to Trauma in Policing’ has been published by the College of Policing. The document, originally published in 2018, has been updated to reflect the current policing landscape, including responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Written by Dr Ian Hesketh and Dr Noreen Tehrani, this guidance represents a significant step forward in the journey to improve our understanding of how trauma exposure affects those who work in policing.

It brings together expertise from across the field to provide evidence-based guidance which can be applied, in a very practical sense, on the ground.

Service Director of the National Police Wellbeing Service and former Chief Constable Andy Rhodes, in the foreword to the guidance says,

We need to do much more if we are to instil the confidence in our people that we care deeply about their mental health. We are listening to their lived experiences and we are moving from talking to doing.

If you think that guidance in trauma is the territory of the specialist, and you are about to delegate the application of the models contained within here, I urge you to think again….

Read the full guidance