PCOs hone suicide
intervention skills
Nowadays, some "999" callers not only request for immediate assistance, but also are facing different dilemmas and wish to end their own lives. In face of these desperate phone callers, Police Communications Officers' (PCO) skills of suicide crisis intervention will come into play, and they will do their best to offer whatever assistance is required.
To upgrade PCOs' professionalism in handling a case of life and death, Information Systems Wing invited experts from the Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong to run a series of 14 training workshops between March and December last year. The experts imparted the skills of handling "999" callers with unstable emotions and suicidal tendency through case-sharing, discussion and role-play exercises.
The experts' presentations enabled the PCOs to appreciate the importance of being an empathetic listener and forging good communication with emotional "999" callers before obtaining from them the information required for offering immediate assistance and taking follow-up action. As frontline officers working in command and control centres, PCOs treasured this opportunity to brush up their professionalism in helping "999" callers in distress.
PCOs
brush
up
their suicide intervention skills through case-sharing,
discussion and role-play exercises