Counselling offered to the Olympic Torch guards
Counselling sessions have been offered to the 28 Metropolitan Police officers selected to accompany the Olympic Torch on its 70 day journey across the country.
The 28 officers will be running alongside the torch and whoever is bearing it for over two months, ensuring that potential attacks are kept at bay.
The officers have received a whole host of additional training to prepare them for the operation and are now clued up in advanced first aid, self-defence and safety skills and media awareness.
Senior officers told the Times newspaper that they want the 28 officers and their 8 reserves to be as prepared as possible for the potential impact of being in the media spotlight for a long period of time, and are offering them all psychiatric support which will help them to settle back into reality once the tour is over.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman has told the Times that the Olympic Torch task was a unique role which had never been performed within British policing before and this is why specialists from the Met’s occupational health team have been working hard to ensure the officers welfare is considered at all stages.
They are going to be away from their homes for some length of time, having an amazing experience, and then will have to go back to their normal roles.
‘For some people, that could be quite difficult. We are going to prepare them for the fact their bodies could get broken, and mentally for being in the media spotlight they could find themselves in.’ She said.
View the original Daily Mail article.