Minutes:
Gary Ridley, Assistant Chief Officer, Durham Constabulary informed the Panel that Durham Constabulary had been nominated in three categories of the 2014 WOW Awards.
The categories the Constabulary had been nominated under were Serving the Community: Best Organisation, WOW! You Changed My Life and WOW! What a Team. The Panel received video presentations which provided details of two of the three nomination categories.
Referring to the ‘You Changed My Life’ nomination, Councillor Forster asked whether counselling services were available for officers involved in this type of work. The Assistant Chief Officer replied that the force and Police and Crime Commissioner had been approached by the Police Federation with a request that officers in specialist roles be given psychological evaluation and the force was looking to commission an external service to provide this, as well as providing training to Inspectors and Sergeants to identify issues. He added that the force operated a confidential helpline, chaplaincy service and an IT package called ‘ Beating the Blues’
The Assistant Chief Officer informed the Panel that the video presentations they had received were examples of work the force undertook on a daily basis and they emphasised that the Police Service was not merely a service to reduce crime.