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Welfare services
This chapter contains these topics:
Summary
Contacting welfare services and chaplains
Police Employee Welfare Service
Confidential services
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Summary
Introduction
New Zealand Police provide a professional co-ordinated welfare service to work alongside
supervisors, employees and their families to assist in maintaining health and well-being.
This may be done by:
• supporting managers and supervisors to carry out their employee welfare
responsibilities
• identifying causal factors impacting on employee wellness, potential injury and
psychological harm
• addressing potential risks of illness and injury rehabilitation
• assisting in injury prevention and promoting wellness.
Assistance and support is provided for employees and their families through:
• supervisors/managers
• Police employee welfare service
• Police chaplains
• external agencies as required or by referral from Welfare officers.
Employer support
The support of employees, their development, positive endorsement and the provision of
necessary feedback is one of the primary roles of supervisors. Supervisors should also
have awareness of individual employees and their circumstances which may cause
impact on their work or family life, when appropriate.
Welfare officers work with employees and their supervisors to assist in achieving the
best possible outcomes for employees and the organisation, if required.
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The controlled document can be found in the Police Instructions site which is accessible via the New Zealand Police Intranet.
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Contacting welfare services and chaplains
Making contact
Employees are encouraged to contact the welfare service or your Police chaplain about
any matters that may be impacting on you, your work role and/or your family.
You can contact a welfare officer or chaplain (depending on the situation or who you are
most comfortable talking to) or someone else may refer you. For example:
• your supervisor, human resource manager or another Police manager
• a family or whänau member
• a work colleague or friend
• your health professional
• service organisation or their district welfare fund representative.
Welfare officers and chaplains at times refer employees to each other with your consent.
How to contact
Contact the welfare officer or chaplain in your district (or at PNHQ or the Police college if
you work there) by email, telephone or through your local communications centre.
Be prepared to leave a message if the person isn’t there. Welfare officers and chaplains
check their messages regularly.
Follow these links for the names and telephone numbers of:
• Welfare Officers (listed in each district’s HR contacts)
• Police chaplains.
This is an uncontrolled document printed for reference only.
The controlled document can be found in the Police Instructions site which is accessible via the New Zealand Police Intranet.
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Police Employee Welfare Service
About the Employee Welfare Service
The Police Employee Welfare Service is a national service focused on employees’ health
and well-being. It is part of the Wellness and Safety group at Police National
Headquarters, with welfare officer's working out of districts.
The Employee Welfare Service:
• provides a professional assessment and referral service for employees and their
families about matters relating to the employee's or family member's health and well-
being
• assists management to identify workplace trends that may impact on employees’
health and wellness
• assists with developing employee wellness, health and safety policy and planning.
Who can access employee welfare services?
These people may access Police welfare services:
• serving employees and their families
• retired employees and their families
• family members of deceased employees in appropriate cases.
The National Co-ordinator: Employee welfare services can approve a Police Welfare
Officer’s services being available for a member of the public, or a police volunteer in
certain circumstances.
Welfare officers
The Employee Welfare Service employs welfare officers to serve each district, Police
National Headquarters and the Royal New Zealand Police College.
Welfare officers are members of professional associations and work under their
association's codes of ethics and principles and the New Zealand Police employee welfare
practice principles. Welfare officers come from a variety of backgrounds such as: social
workers, nursing, occupational therapists, counselling and sworn officers.
Services provided by welfare officers
The services provided by welfare officers include:
• assessing personal or work-related problems then referring you to appropriate
internal or external support services
• assisting with problem solving and managing stress
• information about self-monitoring and self care
• assisting support and rehabilitation for employees returning to work after illness or
injury
• assisting access to critical incident debriefing. E.g. arranging individual and group
debriefs and follow-ups after traumatic and critical incidents, including family
members where necessary.
Resolving issues and concerns
Personal problems
Welfare officers do not become involved in counselling unless the problem raised is one
they can resolve in the short-term by initial advice and counselling.
Workplace issues
Welfare officers can help or resolve your issues or concerns about the workplace by:
• raising your health concerns with management with your consent
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• identifying management issues, trends and safety issues that impact on groups of
employees
• referring you to your district human resources manager or Association or Guild
representative for issues related to employment conditions.
No involvement with discipline issues
Welfare officers must not undertake internal disciplinary enquiries as this would create a
conflict of interest and breach of Police ethical standards. All disciplinary enquiries must
be forwarded to the relevant Professional standards group.
Welfare officers may offer support to employees while they are involved in internal
disciplinary issues. This will often include a suggestion to self refer to EAP.
This is an uncontrolled document printed for reference only.
The controlled document can be found in the Police Instructions site which is accessible via the New Zealand Police Intranet.
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Confidential services
Confidentiality
The Employee Welfare Service is a confidential service. When you seek assistance from a
Welfare officer about a personal or work-related matter, they must respect your rights to
privacy and confidentiality.
Welfare officers must not disclose personal information outside of the Wellness and
Safety group without your consent unless required to by law.
Disclosing information
Disclosure of information is on the basis of informed consent, except where there is:
• risk of harm to yourself and/or others
• a risk or potential risk to the organisation
• prejudice to maintenance of the law
• a requirement to disclose as part of a criminal or employment court process
• information is required with your consent to assist in the resolution of the issue.
If personal information needs to be disclosed in any of these situations, the welfare
officer must keep the disclosure to a minimum.
Limits on disclosure of personal information are detailed in Information Privacy Principle
11 in the Privacy Act 1993.
Collecting personal information
Information is kept about you to:
• meet statistical requirements
• monitor the quality of the employee welfare officer's work with you
• identify the issues and trends and direct resources appropriately.
Brief factual notes are kept about actions taken and advice given. This is necessary for
accountability and to help the employee welfare officer remember important information
about you.
Access to information
You have the right, under the Privacy Act 1993 and Health Information Privacy Code
1994, to access all information kept by the welfare officer and Employee Welfare Service
about you.
This is an uncontrolled document printed for reference only.
The controlled document can be found in the Police Instructions site which is accessible via the New Zealand Police Intranet.
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