One rural Ontario police service is focusing on what more it can do to help officers with their mental health.

Const. Cory Trainor with the West Grey Police Service, which serves an area from Hanover to Priceville and Mount Forest to Chatsworth, says addressing mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder is critical. Not only does it help save the lives of officers, it makes them better at their jobs.

It's why West Grey has every officer go through the Road to Mental Readiness training. Developed by the Department of National Defence, it's a training program to help the officers identify mental health concerns.

"It helps every officer evaluate and do self-assessments as to where they are as a mentally healthy person and to recognize when you are struggling and to have those resources available if you are," Trainor says.

As well, the service has hired on contract a psychotherapist who serves not only the officers, but also their partners and immediate families.

"Often, police officers, when we're struggling, we bring it home. And for our spouses and our children to be able to have access [to a therapist], it's just phenomenal," he said.

Better prevention programs needed

Thursday will mark PTSD Awareness Day in the province. It's the first official day to recognize the condition and it stems from a private member's bill brought forward by Brantford-Brant Progressive Conservative MPP Will Bouma in July 2018.

The bill was part of the provincial government's budget bill, which received royal assent in May.

Bouma says he worked with MPP Monte McNaughton on the bill. He says he's also had his own experience as a firefighter and has seen how hard calls can impact people.

"We owe it to anyone who's been injured in a workplace to properly take care of that and get people back to where they want to be," he said.

"We need to move toward a better prevention program so that the supports are in place so that police, fire, dispatch, paramedics, nurses, PSW (personal support workers) can have those supports built into their workplace so that as those traumas arrive, they can be properly dealt with."

Progressive Conservative MPP Will Bouma represents the riding of Brantford-Brant. He brought forward a private member's bill in July 2018 to have the province officially make June 27 PTSD Awareness Day. That bill received royal assent with the budget bIll in May. (Samantha Craggs/CBC)

Officer suicides rise

The awareness day comes after a year of headlines marking officer suicides in the province.

Ontario's chief coroner is reviewing the circumstances of nine suicides in 2018 alone. That includes the death of Josh de Bock of Elmira, an OPP officer who died by suicide in August 2018.

"That's a significant number — greater than we see typically," Chief Coroner for Ontario, Dirk Huyer, said in an interview in January.

Trainor says the recent rise in reports on officer suicides drives home that too many people don't feel like they can talk about their mental health.

"It's so sad to see that we go to more funerals for officers because of suicides than because of line of duty deaths and that's when you know that there is a problem right now," he said.

Bouma hopes the day will spark conversations across the province to reduce the stigma around people seeking help for mental health.

"My goal is to raise awareness," he said. "I want to get to a place where we can have proper processes in place, supports in place, so that people will have the help they need as they need it."

The Canadian Mental Health Association says it applauds the government for bringing awareness to the condition.

"PTSD is more prevalent among individuals in occupations with increased exposure to these types of events, such as first responders and armed forces personnel," the organization said in a release.

"The unique workplace stress for first responders can lead to Operational Stress Injuries as well, which include PTSD."

CMHA noted women, refugees and Indigenous people are also statistically at a higher risk for PTSD.

There have been efforts to mark the day nationally. Conservative MP Todd Doherty from Cariboo-Prince George, B.C., introduced a bill in January to establish a nationwide PTSD Awareness Day, also on June 27 because that's when it is recognized in the United States. That bill has only passed first reading.

'It's OK to get help'

Trainor says for officers who work in smaller police services, it's not uncommon to know the people on their calls, whether they're friends, neighbours or even family.

"That takes a mental toll on every officer," he said.

But Trainor says if an officer can identify mental health concerns in their own lives, they can identify it in others, whether it's a person on a call, their partner or fellow officers.

He said the West Grey Police Service is committed to regular training for mental health and bringing in new resources as they're made available.

"When we nip it right away, that's when we're going to be OK," he said. "I want everyone to know that, it's OK to get help and that we're there for them."