New Delhi: In what is the first such kind of endeavour being taken in the Indian policing system, senior officials of Uttar Pradesh police have engaged trained psychological counsellors for its lower and mid-level staff who are at the forefront of tackling Covid-19.
Personnel of the 112 helpline number of Uttar Pradesh police, who are working beyond the normal duty hours as they handle close to 26,000 distress calls daily while experiencing human tragedy of various form at close quarters, are now getting psychological counselling to cope up with the stress they are facing. This is for the first time in the country when cops at the most junior level are getting psychological counselling.
After realising that the officials manning 112 emergency contacts were experiencing stress following the outbreak of Covid-19, the head of 112, Additional Director General of Police, Asim Kumar Arun, had written to experts at the University of Lucknow seeking their support to take care of the mental health of his men and women. Arun has requested the faculty members at the Psychology department, University of Lucknow, to initially support the personnel of 112 on a pro-bono basis.
“112 ‘s call takers and first responders are seeing this crisis at close quarters. To continue their work and remain mentally healthy, we need expert psychological support which University of Lucknow and volunteers are providing. We are grateful to all of them for supporting in this hour of need,” Arun told The Sunday Guardian.
The people who are engaged in supporting the staff at 112 are providing them with small video capsules, introducing them to basic ways of dealing with the situation which ends with encouraging them to seek further expert counselling if they feel so.
The experts are also training a pool of volunteers from the 112 staff itself. These volunteers are then being assigned to each person who seek expert counselling, which is done over phone or video call.
As per officials at 112, of the 36,100 staff who work with 112, which includes 1,100 personnel who answer calls and about 35,000 personnel who work on the ground with the police response vehicles, they are expecting that initially, 1% of them would seek expert counselling. Later, at the end of the counselling session, individuals in need of special support will be reported to the department.
As per a April 2013 report published in Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, almost 36% of the 150 policemen of the rank of constables and head constables working in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, were found to be suffering from psychological distress. As per the Ministry of Home Affairs, in the five-year period between 2014 to 2018, 930 police personnel, including those from the paramilitary forces, committed suicide due to stress.
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