Officers encourage to complete menopause survey to support colleagues

Managers, menopausal and post-menopausal staff and anyone who has supported someone going through the menopause has been encouraged to fill out a new survey that will be used to better support officers.

The Police Federation of England and Wales has launched a survey ‘Everyone Pause’ to help it examine personal experiences of the menopause, the training given to officers and staff and the approaches of line managers and senior leaders.

It is anticipated the findings of the survey will help with education, standardisation and understanding so the right support can be provided to officers and police staff.

Zoë Wakefield, Hampshire Federation Chair, said: “This survey is really important because historically women left policing when they had children and very few women came back. But now, women are staying in policing until retirement age and we’ve got women joining the service later, so it is really important that there is support and education there.

“Hampshire has done a lot to support women. But I know there’s probably some forces that don’t do much at all, so it’s really good to seek officers’ views because they can actually see where there are pockets of good practice and where there are pockets where we need to maybe do a bit more work.”

Zoë said that she has had great feedback around the support received in Hampshire and that a lot of the work done empowers women to talk to their line managers and tell them what they need, rather than struggle in silence.

She added: “We’ve done lots of menopause manager-only sessions where it’s just about educating the manager about how to support people on their team. These are easy wins that will make a big difference to officers and we support that.”

To take part, go to: https://www.polfed.org/resources/menopause-survey-2023/