Konstantinos Papazoglou

Applying Resilience Promotion Training Among Special Forces Police Officers.

Police Special Forces (a.k.a. special weapons and tactics [SWAT]) officers are tasked with responding to the most critical situations, including incidents that require specialized skills and equipment beyond typical policing activities. In this study, we tested the feasibility of applying Arnetz and colleagues’ resilience promotion training that was developed for patrol officers to SWAT team officers (n = 18). The resilience promotion training program included psychoeducation focused on police stress and resilience, and the practice of resilience promotion techniques (controlled breathing and imagery) while listening to audio-recorded critical incident scenarios. The aims of this study were to (a) examine if a resilience training program was relevant and accepted by SWAT team officers and (b) assess participants’ physiological stress responses (heart rate, respiration) during the resilience training sessions to note if there were improvements in stress responding over time. Our findings revealed that participants were able to significantly reduce their average heart rate and improve their ability to engage in controlled respiration (i.e., breathing) during simulated critical incidents over the course of the 5-day training. Improvements in stress responding were observed even when the critical incident scenarios became more graphic. Results suggest that an intervention to reduce stress responses of SWAT officers to critical incident scenarios works in a simulated training setting. Translation of these findings to real-world occupational hazards is a recommended next step.

Training police trainees about ways to manage trauma and loss

For the second year we were invited to be trainers at a training seminar for senior police educators, held in the German Federal Police University and sponsored by the European Police College, hence, having the opportunity to build on their previous applications. We applied exercises (psychoeducation, mindfulness/awareness, journaling, processing in dyads) that introduced in this training and designed to teach officers how to handle exposure to adversities and minimize potential negative consequences. Police officers expect exposure to potentially traumatic incidents, yet, often suffer deeply because of unresolved trauma related to handling horrific events. Our work aimed to open discussion in order to formulate a standard component in training curricula related to teaching police trainees ways to effectively handle and process trauma.

Mental Preparedness as a Pathway to Police Resilience and Optimal Functioning in the Line of Duty

The idea of fostering ‘resilience’ among police and military personnel is a topic of growing interest (Andersen et al., 2015a; Cornum, Matthews, & Seligman, 2011; Reivich, Seligman, & McBride, 2011). This topic is particularly timely in light of recent media depictions of questionable use-of-force actions by police and the subsequent public retaliations against the police

Knowledge and training regarding the link between trauma and health: a national survey of Finnish police officers

Research regarding what police officers currently know (or want to know) about the impact of trauma exposure on mental and physical health is rare. Given that police training and educational practices differ based on country or territory, studies using standardized surveys to discover police officer’s preferences or openness to learning further information about the relationship between stress and health are not available. The goal of this study was to develop a survey to answer the following questions: (a) What do police officers know about stress, trauma, and health? (b) Are police officers interested in attaining more knowledge (and in what ways) about stress, trauma, and health? (c) Are police officers open to seeking help for trauma and/or stress-related issues, and if so, where do they prefer to seek help? The survey was fielded to all of the officers serving in the National Police Service in Finland during the spring and summer of 2014. Results suggest that officers were generally aware of the impact of police work on physical health problems (e.g., sleep disorders, heart-related issues) but had not received formal training about how trauma is related to mental and physical health or personal health risks. Officers were open to learning about both traditional (e.g., peer support) and alternative therapeutic techniques (e.g., relaxation), and many reported willingness to enroll in such programs if offered by the organization. Implications include incorporating evidence-based information regarding the trauma-health link into standard police curricula and providing officers with organizationally supported clinical and peer supports and therapeutic opportunities.

Compassion Fatigue and Compassion Satisfaction among Police Officers: An Understudied Topic

Police officers routinely face critical incidents such as violent offenders, motor vehicle fatalities, and mistreated children (Cross & Ashley, 2004; Karlsson & Christianson, 2003). Police are tasked with keeping the peace and helping traumatized victims. Over time, the effort to alleviate the victims’ suffering may come with a cost. Charles Figley (1995) coined the term “compassion fatigue” (pp. 9) to describe this “cost of caring for those who suffer.” Compassion fatigue (CF) has multiple negative effects on caregiving professionals’ wellbeing and occupational performance.

Diurnal and Reactivity Measures of Cortisol in Response to Intensive Resilience and Tactical Training Among Special Forces Police.

Special Forces Police are called to the most dangerous situations that require skills and equipment beyond the training available to a patrol officer. We recruited a platoon of special forces (n = 18) and examined their basal and reactivity levels of cortisol in relation to occupational duties. Moreover, we measured the impact of a multiday program of intensive resilience and tactical training in improving cortisol responses to stressful situations. Participants were significantly more likely to exhibit basal cortisol levels higher than the civilian norms across all of the 5 days of intensive training. However, anticipatory cortisol, measured directly before exposure to critical incident scenarios, was significantly lower in Day 5 than in Day 1 of the training period. This study demonstrates that measuring cortisol is an objective method of examining training effects and possible long-term occupational health outcomes.

Reducing Robust Health-Relevant Cardiovascular Stress Responses Among Active-Duty Special Forces Police

Policing presents a complex set of risk factors for occupational health and safety among officers, including environmental, psychosocial, and health risks. Environmental risks include facing critical incidents such as violent offenders, hostage negotiations, intense crime scenes, and irate civilians. Critical incidents are high pressure situations that are typically time sensitive, and elicit substantial physiological threat responses. When facing a threat, the body normally responds by going into a “fight-or-flight” mode, in which a host of physiological and psychological processes are invoked to help the body cope successfully with the threat [1]. For example, heart rate increases, digestion stops, blood flow to the brain moves from prefrontal cortex (logical thought) to the hindbrain (instinctual drives), and a person becomes less cognitively aware of their surroundings and more focused on fighting or fleeing from the threat. The natural and instinctual physiological response to threat may place police officers at a greater risk of injury or death, by reducing their situational awareness (i.e., ability to notice important environmental stimuli and other threats in their environment), and split-second decision making skills (e.g. shoot/don’t shoot). Advanced police teams called Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officers, are called to the highest risk encounters [2]. The current research is the first to observe robust cardiovascular reactivity among SWAT officers during multiple, active duty shifts. Significant cardiovascular reactivity may pose a health risk to SWAT officers over time. Accordingly, this research documents the case examples from one team of SWAT officers who applied a simple cardiovascular and respiratory control technique during daily activities. Results suggest that this micro-intervention may have significant positive impact on daily cardiovascular health among SWAT officers.

Employing Police Training as a Tool of Preventive Intervention of Police Complex Trauma: A Brief Report from a Module Presented at the 2011 European Police College Train the Trainers Seminar

Currently, the focus and information about training police officers relates primarily to physical and mental fitness and ways to help others. There are very few resources and almost no information available to guide police officers about ways to handle loss and trauma. Officers respond to critical incidents that have the potential to be traumatic and that can precipitate a traumatic response that, in turn, may negatively affect their physical and mental health. The unique nature of a career in law enforcement is that trauma as inevitable and an expected part of the job and that unresolved effects of trauma have the potential to accumulate over a whole career. Police trainers/educators are in a unique position to address this because all police officers are often first-line responders and therefore, first line helpers. The authors provided a module related to training about trauma to European police educators participating in the 2011 “Train the Trainers” 2nd step seminar held in the Police University in Muenster, Germany. They introduced three interventions (education, journal writing, and a mindfulness/awareness exercise) to discern what was effective and possibly could be implemented into police training. It was clear that police trainers made the distinction that they are not therapists, but that they can be a supportive blue brother or sister to their trainees. The principal aim was to create bridges between law enforcement and mental health professionals so that the services developed and offered by mental health professionals could be useful and “palatable” to police officers.

Fighting Police Trauma: Practical Approaches to Addressing Psychological Needs of Officers

Stress and trauma experienced by police officers in the line of duty can have negative impacts on officers’ health and well-being. Psychological support is imperative to help officers maintain psychological well-being and to perform their duties efficiently. However, officers are often skeptical to seek psychological support. The reasons behind such skepticism vary. Specifically, officers may believe that clinicians do not understand police work. In addition, inquiries by clinicians into personal and early life experiences may be interpreted as attempts to patronize officers; as a result, police officers’ identities as those who serve and protect may be disparaged in the context of therapy. This article recommends a number of evidence and practice-based actions that clinicians may employ to approach police culture and develop effective clinical support for officers who suffer from the debilitating effects of police-related stress and trauma. Recommendations for empirical research and clinical practice are discussed.

Giving Voice to Officers Who Experienced Life-Threatening Situations in the Line of Duty: Lessons Learned About Police Survival

Given the high-risk nature of police work, officers are often exposed to life-threatening critical incidents in the line of duty. The present study uses qualitative methods to explore the experiences of police officers (n = 10) during and after life-threatening incidents as well as the strategies they utilized to cope with these experiences. In particular, the participants, who were all operational police officers during the index incidents, took part in in-depth, semi-structured interviews consisting of open-ended questions. These interviews were recorded, transcribed, verified, and then examined to identify themes, using Denzin’s approach for extracting interactional features between narratives. Several common themes between the officers’ stories were identified and organized into broader clusters of (a) experiences during life-threatening situations, (b) strategies utilized during life-threatening situations, (c) experiences after life-threatening situations, and (d) strategies utilized after life-threatening situations. Family, clinical, and organizational implications are discussed, with a unifying conclusion that highlights the importance of collaborative efforts to support officers in recovering from life-threatening situations. Finally, future research that (a) encourages studies of qualitative nature exploring the research questions with larger sample sizes and (b) investigates the interaction between family, clinical, and organizational sources of support is recommended.