Detective Sergeant Emma Harris was awarded the King’s Police Medal for raising awareness of vicarious trauma in policing – leading to embedded improvements in police interview training courses across the Met.
Emma realised the need for change following her own experience with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – after conducting a difficult and graphic police interview, with a man guilty of murdering a fellow police officer.
She said: “With over 20 years’ experience in policing, I didn’t expect to get PTSD from an interview – but my brain had not been expecting to hear what I heard that day, and I realise now I had become complacent with looking after my own mental wellbeing. Thankfully, interviews like that do not happen often, but thousands of officers are interviewing victims, witnesses, and suspects, thousands of times a day; we need to recognise the toll this can take. The effects of interviewing are often overlooked in conversations about officer wellbeing – I decided to share my personal experiences to change that.”
Emma has presented to over 1,000 officers across the Metropolitan Police including the management board at New Scotland Yard, as well as Non-Governmental Organisations and Axon Aid, to drive this change and raise awareness.
All officer interview training courses within the Met, from probationer level to Senior Investigating Officers, now include inputs on officer wellbeing as a result – helping officers to identify the signs of trauma and encouraging open conversation about wellbeing and support.
Despite Emma’s outstanding achievement, she says it took courage to speak openly about her journey with PTSD and have the confidence to go for promotion. She credits Police Now’s Frontline Leadership Programme with supporting her to take those steps and successfully achieve promotion to sergeant rank, saying:
“It takes courage to talk openly about your mental health. For a long time, I bottled it up – in part because I felt like I had somehow failed professionally by being affected this way. I know now that’s not true, and I finally had the confidence to go for promotion last year, thanks to support from Police Now’s Frontline Leadership Programme.
“The programme helped prepare me for promotion and connected me with officers across the country, who all brought different perspectives to the table. It allowed me to better understand myself, and to look at policing through different angles – like through a psychological lens.
“My job is incredible, exciting and rewarding, but not without its challenges. I’m pleased to have contributed to the wellbeing support available across policing; the wellbeing of officers is so important, and I would reassure anyone considering a career in policing that there is a lot of support available. It’s a job like no other and I look forward to continuing to support my colleagues – now from a more senior rank.”
Over 260 officers across England and Wales have achieved promotion to sergeant rank with support from Police Now’s Frontline Leadership Programme, over half of whom are women.
