Our "Why?"
We have been there, done it and come away with more than a t-shirt.
Our founder, Ben, joined the Police in 2015. Initially working the frontline in Luton, Ben saw the best and worst of people. From dealing with incidents of domestic abuse, mental health crises', serious car crashes and even murders, Ben has seen it all. Being focussed and driven, Ben quickly achieved his goal of joining the Roads Policing Unit. RPU was his dream and he gained skills he never thought he would. One downside to such a specialist unit is you get called when the worst has happened and, as expected, Ben found himself dealing with serious injury and fatal collisions on a regular basis. What Ben didn't expect was to be personally involved in one whilst on duty, which is what happened in June 2019.
Ben was involved in a serious on-duty collision which left him with life changing injuries. Due to the physical injuries and the psychological impact the nature and some elements of the collision had, there was no other choice but for Ben to be medically retired. During Ben’s recovery he asked friends, family and colleagues to go fishing with him as he needed assistance with carrying heavy items, bending down and safely handling some of the fish he caught. This led to time on the bank with people who would never have considered going fishing and all said how much they enjoyed their time and how relaxing they found it. These days out on the bank led to honest and open conversations being had, not just about how Ben was doing but also about how others were getting on which made Ben think how fishing could be such a beneficial activity for so many people, especially those who work in roles exposing them to traumatic incidents, causing high levels of stress and are psychologically demanding.
Ben’s experiences with post-trauma care and how this is conducted within the emergency services and private organisations made him seek answers to why it wasn't what it should be, why it was so hard for people to open up about how they have been impacted by an incident, why did it take months to speak to someone in Occupational Health, what was happening to all those who really needed urgent help.
With the answers given, Ben was not impressed. It was frustrating that people who really needed help or needed to be seen quickly had to wait, that being understaffed and overworked led to more people suffering and also, the responses from those on the front line - they didn't trust those they were speaking to due to previous breaches of confidentiality leading to others careers being restricted. ‘Baffling’ was the only way Ben could describe this, so this is why TBL is where it is today - giving those who do unforgiving and thankless jobs that have a negative effect on them the support they need, when they need it.
