Page 36 - FOP August 2021

MENTAL HEALTH CONTINUED FROM PAGE 35
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and get the powers that be at 35th Street to acknowledge the gravity of the situation. As Lodge 7 builds its clinical services program, which will engage outside providers and assure confidentiality, Mette wants to inject posi- tivity into what has become a workforce victimized by the nega- tivity of canceled days off, lack of support from the bosses, venom from the community and the news media, etc., etc., etc.
Will this be the answer to their prayers? Time will tell, but the Lodge wants to start raising awareness about how to overcome a mental health pandemic that has become the greatest threat to officer safety.
“There’s no rhyme or reason about how we got here,” Mette declares. “My way of thinking on this whole mental health and officer wellness issue is the more options, the better. Not every option is going to fit well with an officer. But you have to have different options, because if an officer goes to a clinician and does not like that clinician, they don’t trust them. So I’m trying to get more ways and more ideas about how we can help members if and when they come to us.”
People feel helpless
Lodge 7 does not want to dwell on how it got to this point. And Mette is adamant that the FOP is not trying to take over EAP. That was never the plan.
What members seem to be asking for is more understanding of what it’s like out there. There has been considerable expression about how to get help in turning it off when officers take off their vests, close their lockers and go home for the night.
They can’t seem to do that, however. They go home to their wives or husbands and kids who are mad because they have not seen mom or dad in a couple of weeks. It goes downhill from
there. Officers start shutting down because they absorb another gut punch–like all days off on Father’s Day weekend being can- celed.
“We have an issue with the bosses who don’t get it. If you don’t have an officer who is physically and mentally rested, then you don’t have an effective officer,” Mette emphasizes. “But they keep handcuffing us. And you know what happens to officers as a re- sult? They stop giving a shit.”
Members feeling that way did not want to be quoted by name on this subject. But they do want the Department to hear how bad it has gotten, perhaps as a way to induce more sincere attention to their plight.
One became extremely concerned after watching six members of her unit break down and go to EAP for help during the past couple of months. She is a single mom who, because of canceled days off, is enduring added stress about not being able to put her kids to bed. And Facetiming at bedtime doesn’t qualify as mental health and wellness support.
So what happens when you come home after a 12-hour tour? You’re tired and crabby and your back hurts because you have been standing all day.
“Officers are having all these troubles and they don’t know where else to turn, because [the bosses] blatantly say, ‘We care about you. We’re doing this for you, that for you.’ And it is so obvi- ous that they’re not,” she grumbles. “People feel helpless.”
The cry for help only intensified after meeting with counselors from EAP.
“EAP doesn’t have enough counselors, and they don’t even have enough people who have the experience,” she continues. “We had somebody come in and he was great. But he sat there and listened to us and then he goes, ‘I’m not going to lie to you. I’m overwhelmed listening because I had no idea that these things
36 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ AUGUST 2021