Police: Our ambitious objectives
For Our Men™ aims to become an informal members-only international* network for men in law enforcement, starting in the UK.
(*yes, we’re aiming global! We have an international problem with men’s mental health and suicide in law enforcement)
Our police and more importantly our men mean everything to us here at For Our Men; we set up this entire website and community up because of them. And whilst it’s important to state that our police work hopes to improve many officers’ awareness of mental health and the support they receive across a wide range of groups within the organisation, our focus is predominantly on its men.
We’re building an informal national network for men in police from the ground up and we want you to help us! We want to build the network that our men feel best suits them and whilst we recognise we can’t please everyone, we do want to hear what you’d like our network to look like so please email us at police@forourmen.com with your ideas or if you want to get involved in any way.
Those currently able to join the members-only pilot men’s network are:
- Constables
- Sergeants
- Inspectors
(across Specials, Police and Detectives and Firearms) - Officers currently on long-term leave (sickness / investigation) who hold one of the above ranks
Like all formal associations in police, our men’s network is open to all sexes and genders but it will be for men discussing issues directly affecting them in and outside of the organisation.
To answer the tsunami of questions we’re sure you have including who can join the network, please scroll to the bottom.
Police objectives For Our Men hopes to achieve:
Build an informal national network for men in policing to host the following:
- Create a national honour roll for suicide
- Publish personal stories and interviews
- Create a national peer-support database and network
- Run events for men
- Create a national network of drop-in coffee sessions
- Continue to work with services around men’s mental health
Create a national honour roll for suicide
In the UK, we don’t currently record suicides (especially if they are off duty) of our officers and staff nationally and whilst this is in the process of changing (thanks to a local reporter in Devon, the Federation and the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC)), we don’t currently have an honour roll that includes suicide.
The honour roll will be retrospective though the date we begin recording has not yet been decided and will include suicides of currently and past serving officers and staff even if their suicide was off-duty or out of service.
We will seek the families’ permission (we need your help to do this) to include names and details and should they consent and wish to, we would welcome the opportunity to hear more about the fallen from their personal and work families. If the family do not give permission, we will look to record that person anonymously i.e. “Metropolitan Police Service, March 2020”.
Whilst we appreciate that deaths are a matter of public record and therefore could publish names without such permission, we don’t wish to unnecessarily add to the family’s pain.
We believe that the fallen should be remembered no matter how they left our Thin Blue Line (whether on or off duty) and hope that this becomes a national ‘book of remembrance’ where officers and staff can remember their colleagues with the honour they deserve and are entitled to.
Once set up and established, if successful, we will look to replicate this honour roll across both the fire and ambulance services.
Whilst we understand that, like Police, both the Fire and Ambulance services have national honour rolls, again they only include on-duty deaths and not suicide.
Publish personal stories & interviews
We plan to publish stories, written by officers and staff themselves and interviews across a wide range of professional and personal topics from how it feels to go through an IOPC/DPS investigation right the way through to men’s experience of body image and child loss and what leadership looks like in the job.
Men won’t seek help if they don’t see themselves and their issues represented so we hope that by sharing life and work experiences, it will encourage them to feel a little less alone and know that there is help and support out there.
Our stories and interviews won’t just cover the personal but also around professional experiences and best practices of policing internationally.
Whilst some personal accounts and interviews will be appropriate to publish publicly, the majority of these will sit behind our members-only wall to protect our officers and staff.
If you would like to write for us, please read our submission guidelines and email us directly at police@forourmen.com
Create a national peer-support network & database
Many services already have Intranet pages dedicated to wellbeing that share personal stories and experiences of struggling and seeking support but there is still a hesitancy to engage with such Intranet pages (and support provided therein) due to time and the inherent risk-averse nature of policing. We want to open it up nationally to counter the silo effect and hope that creating an independent, informal network will help our men engage with formal support initiatives already in place.
The idea for this network will be that it serves as ‘matchmaker’ to officers and staff needing some informal support and company. We would look to host profiles on peer mentors about their lived experience, availability and hobbies etc. so that when someone is struggling they can ask to ‘match’ with that mentor.
It could mean a walk with the dog if you’re local to each other, a video call with someone outside your service or even an online gaming session.
We’re specifically looking to match those on long-term leave due to sickness and/or investigation and those about to or have just recently left the organisation as the risk of suicide peaks in both groups.
We hope that by building a national network we can increase representation of men and the issues they face which will positively influence them to recognise their own issues and seek formal support if and when necessary.
Run events for officers*
We will be looking to run a pilot ticketed event in London in Autumn 2020 (world affairs permitting).
The no-frills event will be open to all sexes and genders across Specials, Police and Detectives and will act as an educational introduction on why men’s mental health is different to other groups in policing (and wider society), barriers to help-seeking and advice on how our people can help themselves and colleagues.
London will be our pilot as it is so central geographically and easily accessible for surrounding services but if successful and using feedback from the pilot event, we will look to replicate it in the South West, Midlands and the North.
We will also be running digital ticketed events such as webinars discussing men’s mental health and how leaders can have the difficult but necessary conversations around mental health with those they supervise.
*Officers to mean Constable to Inspector.
Create a national network of peer-lead coffee meet ups for men
Though Andy’s Man Club does exist for men only (you can learn more about them here) we don’t currently recommend its support for police given the potential to meet offenders (which does neither party favours).
We want to create a national network of informal drop-in sessions for men to discuss their mental and emotional health in a relaxed setting. Women are encouraged to have women-only spaces so it’s important we offer the same for men.
We successfully ran one of these in London (for men only) in 2019 where several serving officers from different services attended, receiving great feedback with one officer then asking to run something similar in his own service! We also do some of our best work with individual officers in coffee shops and pubs.
We would look to work with Blue Light champions and educate others (it could be someone who’s recently left the organisation but still wants to be part of it) who wish to run them on how to supervise these sessions.
Continue to work with services
We will continue to work with services to speak at their events and present to Senior Leaders and Chief Officers on the topic of men’s mental health and advocate for a formalised Men in Policing Association.
We have so far worked with:
- Devon and Cornwall Police
- West Midlands Police
- Metropolitan Police Service
- Hampshire Police
- Royal Marines (Commando Training Centre)
What we’d really like to do is run a national survey across the UK on the topic of men’s mental and physical health within policing to get a clear picture of the issues facing them so that we could understand them better but we fear that’ll take service-level buy-in and lead frustratingly.
We suspect it won’t happen until a formal, national network for men has been established but if there’s a way for us to do it, we’ll try and find it!
Ultimately we want to create national recognition and policy change for men in the police and see the establishment of a formal Men in Policing Association.
We’ll be honest, we haven’t got a fucking clue how to logistically run a network on a national scale and we have zero budget (we’ve set this up on our own time and money) but we do know our men and we know how to help them; everything else is just politics and decoration so we’ll work it out as we go.
It doesn’t mean we don’t take the responsibility of the above lightly but trying to relentlessly attempt to satisfy bureaucratic processes and committees for months and years is a big part of the reason we’re here in the first place! In the words of author Elizabeth Gilbert: “It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to get done!”
We’re going to make simple mistakes (and we’ll be transparent and learn from them when we do). We’re going to forget to about the details sometimes (grammar police, take your energy elsewhere). And we’re going to unintentionally piss a lot of people off with this pilot network but leadership isn’t a popularity contest; it’s about doing what’s right and advocating for and supporting our men is the right thing to do.
The advantage For Our Men has is that so many believe in what we’re doing and hope to achieve and that makes all the difference! That belief is what has enabled our founder to become so knowledge on men’s mental health within policing in such a short period of time and why so many consider her to be a national leader on the topic.
Neither can we guarantee that we’ll achieve all of the above especially when (right now) this is masterminded and ran by one person in and around their full time day job so progress will be slow but we’ve got to try! We’re tired of reading “RIP” tweets knowing we can do more for our men.
For all we know we’re going to get blocked (as our founder has already experienced) at every avenue as we attempt the above and we’ll fail in front of thousands (there are certainly many who will be wishing that we do) but we won’t know until we give it a go and the only real failure in life comes when you don’t try and our men are worth trying for.
This is an informal network and is not aimed at replacing professional help; quite the opposite! We hope that by keeping the conversation around men’s mental and emotional health casual that it will enable those to see themselves and their struggles represented to the point that they will seek support from professionals and initiatives already available in their services and the wider medical profession.
For Our Men isn’t an ‘instead of’ when it comes to supporting our men but an ‘as well as’.
We’re aware that all of the above could be happening ‘behind the scenes’ by services or the organisation as a whole but if people aren’t transparent (and we appreciate there are many reasons why they can’t always), we have to presume the above isn’t happening and start walking the path regardless. It could be, therefore, that our objectives change, we create partnerships along the way or handover the reins to others but we’re just going to start and work it all out as we go.
If you think you can help us achieve any of the above or want to get involved, please email us directly at police@forourmen.com.
FAQs:
Why Men?
Quite simply because they don’t have a national voice in police right now and suicide disproportionately affects them. Men are also more likely to suffer with alcoholism, be homeless and 1 in 3 victims of domestic abuse are men.
Out of 43 police services in England and Wales, only 2 services at the time of publishing have a specific men’s network: Devon and Cornwall and Hampshire police (and we’ve worked with both)!
Instead of waiting for another 41 services to create their networks before a national one can be established (losing countless hours to mental health crises and lives to suicide), For Our Men was developed to increase awareness of men’s issues and attempt to reduce mental ill-health and suicide rates in policing and create an informal national network of support.
Simply put, our men (just like any other group in policing) will have specific needs and barriers to help-seeking for their mental, emotional and physical health and if we don’t create an informal space for them, they won’t engage with the formal help if and when they feel its needed.
Why members only?
Whilst some of our police content will be appropriate to publish publicly, we are also aware that personal stories and interviews discussing how an officer felt leaving the organisation or going through an investigation, for example, has the potential to inform offenders on police practices or undermine public perception of services and the organisational nationally.
All police content will be available to members and you can sign up here. Membership is currently free but you need to be an active serving officer or staff member and use your PNN email to register.
Why only certain people?
Those currently able to join the members-only pilot network are:
- Constables
- Sergeants
- Inspectors
(across Specials, Police and Detectives) - Officers currently on long-term leave (sickness / investigation) who hold one of the above ranks
Those currently unable to join the network are as follows:
- Chief Inspector and above (and civilian equivalent)
- National Federation representatives (local fed reps who hold the rank of Constable, Sergeant or Inspector may join)
- Those in operational civilian posts
- Police support staff
- Police Scotland and Police Service of Northern Ireland (though we hope to include them shortly after seeing how the network runs for the UK)
- Health professionals and academics
- Third party organisations and professionals
Our membership is open to all sexes and genders within the organisation (we’re as inclusive as all formal police associations) but the focus will remain on men’s mental, physical and emotional needs.
You can read our full membership rules here.
Whilst we fully appreciate that there are thousands of police personnel from PCs to call handlers, civilian forensic investigators and support staff etc. in need of support, we need to keep our pilot to manageable numbers (and the above inclusions could still net us thousands!) so that we can identify logistical issues and improve them as the network develops and grows. We understand your frustrations but it would be detrimental to all if we opened this to everyone simultaneously.
Leaders have the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and Police Superintendents Association (PSA) and they will also have reduced rates of mental ill-health and different stressors and many of our suicides (from those we can ascertain) have been from the frontline.
It is vital that our men have a protected space free of organisational parameters such as hierarchy or academia in order to build trust and encourage them to seek help if and when needed.
We will continue to present to Senior Leaders on men’s mental health and we may develop a separate membership mechanism for them in the future but for now, our frontline’s need is greater.
If you are a Senior Leader and would like to discuss men’s mental health in your team or service, please get in touch or email us directly at police@forourmen.com
For the critics
Many in large organisations don’t trust the reactive, formal systems (or people) we currently have for a wide range of reasons (legitimate or otherwise) and instead of presenting our officers with a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude to such, we want to attempt to give them what they want i.e. an informal network.
Price Waterhouse Cooper’s seminal Return on Investment (ROI) analysis in 2014 found that ROI for mental health in large organisations was wholly dependent on ‘employee engagement / buy in‘ and leadership of teams and groups; employee engagement being the key point here.
It’s ok to give people what they want in life sometimes especially if it means they engage better and a lot of our men (and other groups within the organisation) want informal support, education and help so we’re going to try and give it to them! Not everything in the organisation, especially wellbeing, has to be a fight.
We’d wager a great many lives were saved by ‘canteen conversations‘ when stations still had them and we had the numbers of people that allowed actual ref breaks; we’re simply trying to create a national canteen that represents that informal support network.
To the many leaders, professionals and academics who will have the words “legal liability” screaming in your heads right, please take a breath.
We work within ethical practices, we adhere to GDPR regulations and, as we’ve said above, we are not a replacement to formal support and services but a complimentary addition where we actively encourage formal engagement.
Instead of viewing us with critical suspicion; ask yourself why we feel the need to attempt to take this action in the first place! Instead of jumping to criticise and dismiss us, take the time to understand our aims and men and work with us!
