36/1/4/1/200900230
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO 2233
DATE OF PUBLICATION IN INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 13 NOVEMBER 2009
(INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO 28- 2009)
Date reply submitted : 15 December 2009
Mrs D A Schäfer (DA) to ask the Minister of Police:
(1) Whether the SA Police Service provides psychological counselling to
police officers who are on active duty; if not, why not; if so, what
form does this assistance take;
(2) whether SAPS members are aware of this assistance; if not, why not;
if so, how is this communicated to the officers;
(3) how many officers in each province received psychological counselling
in the past three financial years;
(4) whether there is any compulsory psychological counselling for members
involved in traumatic incidents; if not, why not; if so, what are the
relevant details?
NW2942E
REPLY:
(1) COUNSELLING
The Employee Health and Wellness (EHW) of the South African Police
Service (SAPS) follows an integrated approach utilising psychologists,
psychometrists, social workers and chaplains to provide support and
assistance to the employees of SAPS. Psychological counselling and
therapy therefore only addresses a part of the reactive and pro-active
support interventions. Counselling is provided to all SAPS employees
in line with the need identified. This could entail spiritual, social,
trauma, work related and health and wellness counselling. Counselling
can also take the form of support groups and long term trauma
interventions with high risk groups.
Support services, especially reactive services such as counselling and
therapy is available to all employees of the SAPS. Employees are
entitled to receive such services whilst on duty. The EHW employees
are available on standby duties to attend to any crisis incident and
provide support. Standby duties entail availability of EHW to SAPS
employees 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
(2) AWARENESS OF SUPPORT SERVICES
SAPS employees are continuously made aware of the EHW and the support
in pro-active and reactive services that can be provided. These
awareness drives occur on a regular basis during station lectures,
awareness days such as World Aids Day, World Disability awareness,
mental illness month and mental wellness month, open days at
divisions, SAPS day and intranet marketing. Furthermore, trauma
counselling and the Employee Assistance Programme is guided by a
national instruction that has been circulated nationally.
The EHW also relies on the supervisor or commander that is in direct
contact with the employee to report any employee that is experiencing
difficulties. Supervisors and commanders are trained within this
reporting in the Initial Debriefing course that is compulsory to
attend.
The employees as the principal persons responsible for their own well-
being should request assistance from EHW if they experience difficulty
in any aspect of their work or social environment. This principle is
specifically directed towards SAPS employees that should take
ownership of their well-being and development.
(3) The following statistics include the following:
* Trauma counselling
* Psychological counselling/Psychotherapy
* General counselling - work related, relationships
* Spiritual counselling
* Substance abuse and dependence
* Bereavement
* Suicide Prevention
|Province |2007/2008 |2008/2009 |2009/2010 Up |
| | | |until August 2009|
|Head Office |3358 |482 |39 |
|KwaZulu-Natal |1854 |2364 |1013 |
|Mpumalanga |1836 |3929 |1118 |
|Gauteng |5388 |2463 |464 |
|Limpopo |2887 |637 |176 |
|Free State |2092 |2862 |209 |
|Northern Cape |1848 |2113 |122 |
|Eastern Cape |2206 |498 |482 |
|Western Cape |4857 |6932 |249 |
|North West |1832 |775 |360 |
|Total |28 158 |23 055 |4154 |
(4) TRAUMA COUNSELLING
Psychological counselling is viewed as a broad form of counselling and
can provide support in any problem that an employee may have to deal
with. Trauma counselling however is very specific and provided to SAPS
employees after a critical incident or traumatic experience.
Trauma counselling is not compulsory within the SAPS as it will be an
infringement on the basic human rights of the employee.
Trauma counselling or trauma debriefing is guided by the National
Instruction 18/98 version (0.03) which provides the organisation with
specific regulations in terms of trauma reporting, the rights of the
employee such as receiving trauma counselling within official hours
and confidentiality.
The provision of trauma counselling to employees is viewed as in the
best interest of the organisation, however the employee may still make
an informed decision whether to receive the service or not.
All trauma counsellings and refusals of trauma counsellings are
recorded and kept within the trauma register at cluster stations and
units.
Reply to question 2233 approved by Minister