A new member has joined the 性视界传媒 Police Service, this one of the furry variety, to help officers dealing with stress on the job.

Ragnar, a service dog, and his handler Sgt. Kaleigh Paddon will work in partnership with a psychologist to bring officers resources in an ongoing effort to integrate wellness within police services.

Paddon and Ragnar underwent extensive training to be able to provide their services to SPS. Ragnar himself graduated today (July 27) from VICD Service Dogs in order to be deployed as SPS鈥檚 Operational Stress Injury dog.

鈥淎 lot of what we do is have officers come in if they鈥檙e seeking help or they鈥檙e struggling so (Ragnar) really helps with breaking down that barrier and making people comfortable in starting that conversation about mental health,鈥� Paddon explained.

READ ALSO:

鈥淲e do peer support training, we respond to those critical incidents, those big deals, we also do smaller defusing or de-briefings or things like group sessions with our psychologist and (Ragnar) comes to all of it. He goes everywhere we go.鈥�

During his more than 20 years of experience as a police officer, Ian MacDonald, SPS media liaison, said mental health initiatives were often an afterthought.

鈥淪o usually after some tragic incident, they鈥檇 say, 鈥榊ou know what we could really use is maybe a psychologist to check in with us and maybe we can build some wellness support,鈥� but it鈥檚 a little bit like trying to put the water back in the pool after it鈥檚 spilled out already,鈥� MacDonald said.

鈥淚f you don鈥檛 take care of your people, it鈥檚 going to not just impact your agency, but it鈥檚 going to impact the type of service delivery. Citizens are not going to be well-served by a work force that鈥檚 depleted, injured, off-sick and suffering, really.鈥�

Ragnar has already proven his popularity with officers, his and Paddon鈥檚 office being the one visited most, she said.

editorial@peacearchnews.com
Like us on and follow us on