Transition Challenges

The participants had different reasons for why they found transition challenging. Skye explained ‘I was 16 when I joined. It’s like someone getting out of prison and they’ve got to be re, re-established into the community, very similar I would say’. Abigail explained that the perception of reality is different for service personnel and this cannot be changed. She stated:  

I think it’s more of what I said before, is that there is this real reality difference. Like we, ex-coppers, ex-military, all of that, we have a completely different understanding of what actually happens and, you know, every day you’re faced with horrendous things you know. And, you know, from, you know, deaths to murders and rapes, and you know, you know I’ve interviewed seven year old rape victims, and you know, all of those horrendous things, and it becomes a part of your life, and it becomes a part of your whole reality. I have children now, and I’m over, and I know I am, I’m over protective, ridiculously over protective. You know, and my husband’s the same. We know we both are, but you know, we have a different perception of reality to anybody else.  

Abigail also questioned whether transition challenges arise from the fact that any other job is never as exciting as policing. She stated  

so, it’s, you know it’s exciting and it’s, and I don’t think you can get that from any other job. And, you know, and you get to a point where I suppose sometimes you’re a bit angry at yourself because you’ve left, but you know that you did it for all the right reasons.   

Kim confirmed that the hypervigilance that comes from these service roles, police and military especially, takes a while to disperse, explaining  

initially just to stop being vigilant all the time as well. Just to relax, and you’re not on duty anymore, so don’t worry about if someone’s bleeding or whatever. That takes, takes a while.  

Natalie explained that she ‘Just want[s] to heal. Just want[s] to be able to move on’ but neither she nor any others could specifically explain why there was such difficulty in ‘moving on’. It presents as a challenge for all the participants, across all the services, and for both genders. 

Harry explained  

I honestly think the biggest downfall of service, of leaving service life is that there is no re-education or no reintegration into civilian life. You’re chucked out there with your, with your, sort of, I guess, warrior attributes. And that had been trained into you. Whether it’s, doesn’t matter, Army, Navy, Air Force, whatever. And yeah, you’re expected to then get by in a normal society where people don’t understand or haven’t shared those experiences, so they think that you’re just angry or aggressive or whatever the word might be. It makes it very hard to fit in.  

When asked what the solution may be, Harry indicated perhaps some sort of ‘deprogramming process’. When the idea of ‘deprogramming’ was presented to other participants through direct questioning it became clear that they have difficulty separating their mental health issues from their inability to understand how their skills translate, and further how this impacts their post-service job satisfaction. In the strictest context, deprogramming would require the deskilling of all individuals in service, and although impossible to do, even hypothetically it is unlikely that any individual would want to give up the skills they have spent years developing. Even if it is specialised weapons use, as an example. Gary suggested ‘educated support I think is the key’. Warwick suggested that perhaps it was to do with the expectations of individuals going into service roles, which then impacted their ability to successfully transition to employment when leaving. He explained:  

They hear electrical trade, they don’t hear that you get a statement of attainment towards an electrical trade. You don’t get the full trade. Electricity at sea, whilst it has the same effect, it’ll still boot you across the room and do all that sort of stuff, the way we wire a warship is completely different to the way you wire a house. So why would the navy teach you to wire a house? They want you to go to sea. So it’s selective hearing as much as anything else  

The challenges are varied but can all be attributed to the training and repeated activities of the service role. If the transition process is to remain for these service organisations, then the individuals will require better support in transition to understand their connection to the service role and the way in which this will impact their post-service employment.    

Identity Connection in Transition 

Across all three service groups, most participants made it clear that the transition period was an extremely confronting and confusing time. And for many, it was still not fully resolved years after leaving the service. Their reported feelings upon leaving the service and entering the civilian world, that feed an ‘us and them’ mentality, combined with their expectation of organisational responsibility for their transition and their need for ‘deprogramming’, indicates a strong link between the training that establishes their service identity and the struggles they face in transition and the post-service environment. This identity connection is explained by Woodward and Jenkings’ (2011) work, which suggests individuals do not realise that they have become what they were doing. As such, being a police officer, a soldier/seaman/aircraftman/woman, or firefighter or paramedic becomes more than a job role, instead becoming the way in which they define themselves (Woodward & Jenkings, 2011). One of the unique experiences for this group in defining themselves this way is that they cannot continue to use this definition when they leave the organisation. This is different for other jobs and/or professions who can keep the title even when employment changes. For example, a lawyer or a carpenter are still qualified in those areas if they change employers or choose another profession. Whereas, in Australia, using the police as an example, a NSW police officer cannot transfer to the Queensland Police Service without repeating full recruit training, so, the same organisations do not recognise their counterparts from different states. And they are not police, nor can they use that title, once they are outside the organisation. Similar rules apply for emergency services, in particular fire fighters, and for the military. Thus, the loss of the professional identity post-service is swift and severe.  

At this stage in their personal timelines, the connection to their service organisation comes from not being able to effectively communicate their service role-based skills to new employers and feeling as though they are not suitable applicants for new positions. When this occurs, they hold on to their professional identity as a soldier/sailor/aircraftman/woman or police officer or firefighter or paramedic as they are most comfortable relating to the environment in which their skills still have some value. This creates a hurdle between the individual and the new employer as they are unable to communicate effectively. The participants described being unable to understand how their previous service-related skills and knowledge fit into civilian employment, or more commonly, why the civilian world could not grasp the true benefit of having them as employees based on these same skills. The individuals become disillusioned post-service and start to adopt the mentality that no one understands them anyway, so they just need a job that can support them and their families. This thinking leads to poor job satisfaction.