Tackling officers’ mental health is a top priority for Greater Sudbury Police Service Chief-designate Sara Cunningham.
It’s an approach motivated by the leadership skills employed by her father, Jim Cunningham, a past deputy chief who retired in 2007 after a 38-year career in policing.
A key point of inspiration, she said, is “his care for the men and women here at the police service,” she told Sudbury.com on Monday, her first day as chief-designate. “He really took pride in that.”
“It’s about that authentic leadership, really caring for the people that are out in the community and doing really challenging work,” she said, adding that her goal is “to make sure we are member-centred and taking care of the well-being and wellness of our internal members.”
When it comes to incidents such as PTSD, she said police need to know, “It’s OK not to be OK.”
“If I had a broken arm, I wouldn’t sit with a broken arm, I’d wear a cast because I would have taken care of my broken bone,” she said. “We’re going to serious calls, we’re going to fatalities ... and brains aren’t built to see this on the daily.”
Supervisors are being trained to watch for employees and know when to ask if they’re doing OK, she said, and they have a process in place where those members who attend traumatic incidents such as a sudden death are reached out to after the fact to ensure they are receiving the support they need.
“We have great things in place, but we always, always, always can do better,” she said, adding that members are being encouraged to speak openly about mental health struggles.
Last week, the Greater Sudbury Police Board announced that Cunningham was hired as the city’s first female chief of police, replacing outgoing Chief Paul Pedersen, who vacated the role in June to take an executive director role at the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.
Since that time, Cunningham has joined fellow Deputy Chief Natalie Hiltz by sharing acting chief duties on a rotating basis.
Although she has been serving as chief on a permanent basis since Monday, Cunningham will be considered chief-designate until such time as she has been formally sworn in. A ceremony is currently being planned.
Cunningham said that with 46 years’ experience as a resident of Greater Sudbury, where she was born and raised, and 26 years as a police officer, including almost five as deputy chief and recent months’ experience as acting chief, she should ease into the role fairly quickly.
“Hopefully I can hit the ground running pretty fast,” she told Sudbury.com in her fifth-floor office at police headquarters overlooking Downtown Sudbury. “I already know the organization and I know the community.”
There’s “room for improvement” in various areas of police services, she said, adding that each department would be contacted to help her determine what’s working and what needs improvement. This effort will then expand outward to also encompass community partners.
“I’m going to start internally, because I feel we have to be good on the inside in order to be good on the outside,” she said.
An ongoing area of concern for GSPS has been record-high rates of violence in the community, which has included a few declarations of intimate-partner violence as an epidemic.
Accompanying this trend has been the reality that the majority of calls to GSPS (84 per cent last year) are not criminal in nature, and often involve mental health-related incidents.
Another of Cunningham’s goals as police chief will be better connecting with community partners to ensure people don’t fall through the cracks that exist between services.
“Are the police the best people to respond to someone who has just found shelter for the night and might be under the influence?” she asked. “Not really, it should be someone in the social service.”
That said, police are still oftentimes the first point of contact.
“We, the police, play a key role in community safety and well-being, and we’re for sure going to be in that space supporting those community partners, but we’re not the sole entity to address all of that,” she said, adding that there’s “room for improvement” when it comes to linking these partners together to ensure there are no gaps in services.
Communication, both internal and external, is another area for improvement, Cunningham said.
Earlier this year, Sudbury.com reported that other police agencies release more information on their officers’ day-to-day activities than GSPS does and that information shared by GSPS has been spotty, with inconsistent messaging across messaging platforms.
“I want to be open and transparent so that our community knows exactly what GSPS is doing,” Cunningham said, flagging this as another area of review.
“The more we can share with our community on what we’re doing as a police service, then we’re going to do that. I think we can do better in that space.”
The fact Cunningham is the first female chief of police in Greater Sudbury has not been lost on her, and she hopes it will help open doorways for others to follow suit.
“I am a mom of three daughters, and I’d also like to inspire the future police leaders in this organization that are female.”
It’s a merit-driven organization, she said, adding, “I hope that anybody who’s worked extremely hard would be in this position.”
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
