As I left work on Friday, I got a call from the person who is responsible for training Police Family Liaison Officers. It would seem that her appreciation of my efforts last time was genuine because she’s invited me back for a second training.
So I’ll be there in two weeks hopefully training more FLOs to behave like human beings rather than callous automatons.
Last time I took an excerpt from my blog as a prompt. This time I’ll take the same one again along with the piece I wrote on Restorative Justice. http://afteral.blogspot.com/2010/12/restorative-justice-id-laugh-if-i.html
It’s raw and angry but I think it conveys my fury and depths of despair very well. I hope they are able to handle it. Mind you, if they aren’t – tough! They get to go home to their nice ordered lives. I go home to a house where my son is conspicuous by his absence. It’s important to me that they understand what it is like to undergo the worst possible nightmare and then, as if it cannot possibly get any worse, be treated like crap by the very people whose job it is to protect us.
I need them to become human and have some empathy. Let’s see how this batch does.
My first thought when I read the title was "Oh No! Will Bev be ok"... and to feel a little tense for you. But now I've read your post, it seems you have it in hand, and if you can make them more sensitive and caring FLOs, all power to your elbow!
ReplyDeleteBut allow me to go off at a tangent... your post about others going home to their happy lives did remind me of something. The other day at work, I made a jovial comment about a charity "jump off the bridge" - they are doing a charity abseiling event, and received a stern lecture from my stakeholder about how language was important, and it was not a flippant matter as one of their clients daughter's had attempted to commit suicide off that bridge, but survived. Suicide is not funny, he laboured on, as though I was rather stupid and wouldn't be able to grasp the point...
I had been actually been thinking macho bungee jumping - which does make me snigger, i'm afraid, not suicide.. But lets face it, with a bf who hung himself, a dose of PTSD, and a dead daughter of my own, i don't really need a lecture on gravitas...
Anyway, I just murmured consent and agreed it was all very serious... He probably drifted away feeling proud he had me told...
I suppose we are all in the habit of making too many assumptions about others!!
You're right of course Susan. And I almost deleted the bit about nice ordered lives - I knew I wasn't being fair making that assumption. However, I'd just re-read my post about how awful it was and how many had behaved badly and I was just too pissed off to remove it.
ReplyDeleteGo for it Beverley. As far as I'm concerned the police are a bunch of arseholes who are too concerned with ticking boxes to actually care about the mess they leave behind. My closest friend who was at the hospital THAT night overhead the DSI in charge of the case mutter to her underling 'we'll have to get her to leave him soon, it's the end of the shift' I was cradling Kieron as life support was switched off at the time. BITCH.
ReplyDeleteThe callousness never fails to astonish me
ReplyDelete