Wellbeing Dogs & Mental Health

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FOI/24/7386

Version Date: 30/12/2024

The Wellbeing Manager and Workforce Planning Department have provided the following information.

1. How many wellbeing dogs are currently employed within your force, and if applicable, what breeds are they?
   
   

Devon & Cornwall Police is run with a service level agreement with the Oscar Kilo 9 (OK9) national project which is part of the National Police Wellbeing Service (NPWS).

We have a coordinator who has a wellbeing dog along with 10 other volunteer wellbeing dog owners. These owners have other roles in the force but use their dogs as requests are received from different areas of the force. Breeds of dogs within our OK9 Scheme include: The Working Cocker Spaniel, English Spaniel, Cockerpoo (various sizes), West Highland Terrier, Wired Haired Jack Russell, German Shepherd, Labrador, Collie.

2. If the force does not have wellbeing dogs, is there another resource or provider used for this purpose?
   
   

Not applicable

3. Is there a mental health policy inclusive of wellbeing dogs?
   
   

The force has a Health and Wellbeing Policy which is currently being reviewed. This does not currently specifically mention wellbeing dogs, but a focus of the policy is around Primary Interventions aimed at promoting good health and wellbeing.

The force has a Wellbeing Department which offers a range of supportive wellbeing initiatives across the force including coordinating the OK9 Wellbeing dogs.

4. Over the past five years, what percentage of total sick days taken by police officers and staff were due to mental health conditions?
   
   

These figures have been taken from our quarterly sickness reporting which contains the data as at the last day of the relevant quarter (30th Sep 24, 30th Jun 24, etc.) as it was recorded on the system at those times. Any individuals who were on Extended Leave Break or External Secondment at the time have been excluded from the data.

Please be advised that the data within the snapshots does not have accurate working days lost in it, therefore any period of sickness that lasted longer than 5 calendar days has had a 5/7ths formula added to determine working days lost as accurately as possible

Mental health sickness is recorded by the following sub categories

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Drug or alcohol problems (inc. painkillers or tranquilisers)
• Other mental disorders (inc. bipolar, schizophrenia, hypomania)
• Other stress
• Post Traumatic Stress

5. What were the most common mental health conditions reported?
   
   

The most common category is “Other Stress”