For the past several years now, Kolkata Police have been running Pronam – a special project for the lonely and the aged in the city. Currently, there are thousands of aged people enrolled in the scheme and officers have been deputed to take care of them within their jurisdictions.
Police officers often face a number of difficulties while dealing with elderly persons. In order to help both sides, a special mental wellbeing workshop was organised jointly by Kolkata Police and Caring Minds - Institute of Mental Health on Thursday at the Police Training School.
Several police officers were present at the event
A number of senior police officers, including the additional commissioner of police, Shubhankar Sinha Sarkar, joint commissioner of police Ashesh Biswas and ACP Basudeb Bhattacharjee were present among others. During his welcome speech, Sarkar praised the concept of the event and said, “Mental health and wellbeing are very important aspects in today’s perspective and when it comes to police, it is more than essential. I think such workshops and engagements should occur more frequently,” he added.
The event which began on a formal note, gradually became interactive and lively.
After this, two home guards and a civic volunteer were felicitated for their exceptional work for Pronam. “These are ground-level workers who toil round-the-clock for the lonely aged persons. Through such felicitations we can only recognise their contribution and inspire others,” said a senior police officer.
Workshop
Psychologist for Caring Minds, Megha Kar, kicked off the workshop with a talk on common issues like dementia, depression and apathy of family members towards the lonely and elderly in the city and how the police should deal with such situations. “Empathy is the key. Even if we do not understand their real issues, with empathy, we can show that we are with them,” said Kar. To make the session interactive, Kar called three police officers for a role-playing session. The members of Caring Mind acted as elderly persons and presented difficult situations and the officers were asked to communicate and resolve their issues.
Psychologist for Caring Minds, Megha Kar addressing the workshop
Handling situations
During such a session, police officers were asked to share the challenges they faced regularly while working with the elderly. Narrating an incident a cop said, “There was this aged woman, who used to think that people around her and even passersby were conspiring against her and wanted to kill and hence she lodged a police complaint against them. After a few incidents, the local police didn’t know what to do,”
Civic Volunteer Tarun Ghosh was awarded with Rs 11,000
“Under Pronam, there was this elderly man who had shared his phone number with a taxi driver during a ride. Later, the cabbie would dial the person around midnight and threaten him. The terrified elderly person lodged a complaint with Kolkata Police and the situation was handled deftly,” said a police officer.
