Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Mick Gentlemen has launched a campaign aimed at increasing peer and social support for police and emergency services workers and volunteers.
Mr Gentlemen said the “Are they Triple OK?” campaign had been developed in response to Beyond Blue’s nationwide ‘ Answering the call’ study.
“Canberra’s police and emergency services put themselves in tough situations every day to keep our community safe and deserve the best possible tools and support,” Mr Gentlemen said.
“This campaign puts recommendations from ‘Answering the call’ into action.
‘Are they Triple OK? provides tips and resources to encourage life-changing conversations at home and in the workplace to encourage early intervention and help-seeking”.
He said he was encouraging police and emergency services workers and their families to use the new resources, keep an eye out for one another and ask, ‘are you OK?’.
ACT Policing’s Detective Senior Constable Jonathon Turkich is one of five personnel from ACT who will be featured in the nationwide campaign.
At the campaign launch Snr Const Turkich spoke about the subtle signs colleagues and family should look for that indicate it could be time to ‘check in’.
“I think there’s a lot of black humour in the emergency services, not just policing and I think that can be a coping mechanism, but you get that feeling that sometimes that black humour isn’t humour anymore, it’s what they’re feeling inside,” Snr Const Turkich said.
Free digital and printable resources for the campaign, including a conversation guide, are available from the RUOK website at this PS News link.
