Sistema Nacional de Endeudamiento Público

The following recommendations are made on the basis of the findings of this study and the conclusions drawn from the findings:

7.4.1 Workplace support programmes

• PTSD information and awareness sessions should be presented by the EHW

personnel to educate immediate family members, who live with, and are taking care or rendering necessary support to the member diagnosed with PTSD. Furthermore, commanders and fellow police workers who are also work support structures and constantly interacting with workers diagnosed with PTSD in the work environment should be empowered about the health condition and how it affects individuals. This will create an understanding regarding PTSD, enhance support at home and at work, and minimise discrimination and acts of labeling among workers with PTSD, especially in the work environment. This should be conducted in conjunction with stakeholders such as external mental and health professionals and experts, including specialist psychiatrists and counseling, educational and clinical psychologists.

• Efforts to manage PTSD should be carried out by the EHW, the SAPS management and health and mental professionals to share identified factual data on the contributing factors to mental health conditions within the SAPS Mahikeng cluster. Collaboration between these sectors will assist in the identification of ways to manage the situation.

• There should be presentation of life skills programmes by the SAPS EHW

personnel, including financial management to all SAPS workers diagnosed with PTSD and to their immediate families to empower them with effective coping skills.

• The EHW personnel should inform all workers about their services, including the

benefits of actively participating in the EHW programs.

• Commanders and fellow police workers should support and not label workers

diagnosed with PTSD as the “crazy ones”.

• The Mahikeng area management should support the EHW personnel, who in

conjunction with sport coordinators should ensure the establishment, co- ordination and refurbishment as well as maintenance of the gymnasium at the Mahikeng cluster offices. The development and up keeping of varying sporting activities, recreational and indigenous games in the Mahikeng cluster area to promote, team spirit and healthy and active lifestyles is indeed fundamental to PTSD management.

• Development, maintenance and facilitation of PTSD support groups within the

Mahikeng cluster, by the EHW personnel, will enable workers to have immediate access to this crucial service meant to promote group cohesion and belonging, aspects fundamental to PTSD management. This service does not exist at the study site.

7.4.2 Accommodative policies

• Support by employer in the form of inclusion within the health and wellness

policies for alternative and suitable placement of workers to release workers diagnosed with PTSD from operational duties to accommodative administrative duties, is needed.

• The SAPS organisation’s transfer policy should be adapted to accommodate workers diagnosed with PTSD to ensure that they are transferred to places that are close to their immediate family members for necessary support. The policy should grant approval for workers’ medical boarding applications due to PTSD ill health.

• The POLMED Psychiatric disease and treatment management and support

programme should render awareness about this service and encourage workers with PTSD to register for the service. Adequate and available medical aid funding should be provided by the employer and be accessible to all workers diagnosed with work-related PTSD as well as to their immediate family members.

• Institutionalise a policy to provide financial support in the form of tertiary

bursaries specifically for the immediate family members of the SAPS workers diagnosed with work-related PTSD.

7.4.3 Family support programmes

• There should be provision of integrated EHWP counseling, debriefing as well as

adequate care and support services in the form of telephonic support, hospital and home visits to all workers’ immediate family members to help them cope effectively with the health and social effects of living with a member diagnosed with PTSD, particularly during ill health episodes.

• The EHW personnel should conduct adequate follow up sessions with all families

affected by living with a member diagnosed with PTSD to assess their coping levels and to continue rendering necessary psycho-social and spiritual support. 7.4.4 Enhanced access to the SAPS EHWP services

7.4.4.1 Capacitation of the SAPS EHW Programme

• Ensuring that adequate services are rendered by the EHW Programme in the

Mahikeng area should be done by the SAPS Mahikeng and Northwest Provincial EHW management to enable accelerated and readily available access to psychological, social and spiritual support services for all workers diagnosed with PTSD and their immediate family members, most essentially enhanced provision to trauma debriefing, PTSD support group and counseling services salient in PTSD management.

• The SAPS organisation should train all trauma debriefers using the Wits Trauma Model (WTM) to equip them with more skills as presented in the model to help with workers’ and families’ PTSD management.

• Adoption of the WTM by the SAPS management and EHW management forums

at Mahikeng area, the SAPS North-west provincial headquarters in Potchefstroom and the SAPS Head office in Pretoria, is fundamental to PTSD management in the Mahikeng area.

• The adaption of the WTM training programme by the WTM trainers and

facilitators to suit the SAPS environment during training of the EHW practitioners is essential in order to ensure its relevancy and effectiveness to the unique SAPS work environment which is constantly exposing workers to trauma.

• Effective implementation of the WTM within the SAPS organisation by the EHW

personnel after obtaining training on the model is crucial to PTSD management.

• The EHW personnel should facilitate the training and re-training of commanders

on initial debriefing (defusing) to render immediate support to traumatised workers and to refer them for formal debriefing as a means of preventing PTSD development

• The SAPS provincial and Mahikeng cluster management should develop and

maintain a retention strategy for EHW Professionals in the Mahikeng area. This will ensure uninterrupted and sufficient counseling as well as other health and wellness support services for the SAPS workers with PTSD and their immediate family members.