A Guide for Developing an Effective Stress Management Policy for Law Enforcement
Excerpts From The COPS Office – U.S. Department of Justice and SPC St. Petersburg Center for Public Safety Innovation
By James D. Sewell
A Guide on Stress Management
It is widely recognized that emotional and psychological stress takes its toll on law enforcement personnel, both sworn and civilian. (Spence et al. 2019). Such stress can come from a variety of sources, including responsibilities inherent to the job (e.g., danger, job risk, and exposure to disturbing incidents) and administrative or operational issues (e.g., lack of educational training, shift-work, inadequate supervision or management, and poor equipment). Occupational Stress has severe detrimental effects on the health and well-being of law enforcement personnel and their families. This guide will provide an outline of an agency’s effective response to the issue of psychological and emotional stress in the law enforcement profession.
Setting a baseline for agency action, an agency’s formal policy statement should clearly outline the focus of the policy and succeeding implementation procedures. For instance:
It is the policy of this agency to engage in practices that support the health and well-being of personnel; provide education and training in awareness, management, and mitigation of stress and its effects; identify times of individual and collective crises; and provide appropriate response to stress-related issues. As part of its comprehensive program of stress management, the agency is committed to hiring those personnel who – by an assessment of their background, attitude, and emotional and psychological condition – are suited to a career in law enforcement.
Policy Component
Policy 1. Psychological Support: Key Policy Elements
1.) Recognizing the need for psychological and emotional support of agency personnel by the nature of their employment, an agency should include the following elements in its comprehensive stress management program:
Critical incident stress management – CISM
Response to line-of-duty death and serious injury
Peer Support Program
Employee Assistance Program – EAP
Organized Chaplain Program
Professional Psychological Services
1.) These psychological support elements may be offered either directly by on-staff or contractual personnel or in conjunction with the efforts of another agency.
2.) The agency should make every effort to ensure that psychological support is available to spouses and families of its personnel during critical incidents.
3.) In addition, the agency could encourage its members to take advantage of a voluntary wellness check-in as well as to meet annually with a peer support member, chaplain, or staff psychologist to discuss any emotional issues.
4.) Additional procedures and protocols for access to and use of psychological elements of the agency’s stress management program should be detailed in appropriate general orders of the agency.
5.) The agency should ensure that appropriate protocols are in place to protect confidentiality of personnel accessing and receiving such psychological services, including peer support. The agency should further ensure that such protocols are adequately disseminated to and enforced among its personnel.
Policy Commentary
Psychological support of law enforcement personnel, both sworn and civilian, is a critical element in any comprehensive stress management program. Meeting the needs of individual employees requires a variety of services. Every law enforcement agency should have CISM capabilities and be able to deal with the impact of incidents such as line-of-duty deaths, mass casualties, horrendous violent crime scenes, and other critical incidents. Such CISM capabilities can be supported by the use of peer support personnel, ie., sworn and civilian employees trained in the ability to listen to their colleagues during times of personal and collective crises, access the issues, and refer for appropriate assistance. An organized chaplain program offers the assistance of clergy to those many members of the law enforcement profession who seek spiritual assistance. Finally, in situations involving severe psychological or emotional distress, the use of professionals in the field of psychology – whether psychiatrists, psychologists, or other degreed or licensed mental health professionals – offers a depth of treatment during the most difficult times law enforcement personnel face. Depending on the size of the law enforcement agency, many of these services, especially peer support personnel, may be provided in-house by agency personnel. In others, such assistance, especially an employee assistance program or professional psychological services, may be obtained by contract. Still other agencies may find it useful to combine with other agencies to generate sufficient resources to provide such support to their personnel.
Policy 2. Training of Agency Personnel
Key Policy Elements
1.) The Training Unit should ensure an active and ongoing training program of stress awareness, management, and mitigation for sworn and nonsworn personnel. Such training should include classes and in-service and roll-call training.
2.) Such formal and informal training should be develop to ensure access to stress management practices throughout an officer’s career and should include:
Academy inoculation
Orientation of nonsworn personnel, 9 1 1 telecommunicators, and other civilian personnel who may be exposed to disturbing situations
Ongoing stress throughout an officer’s career
Stress inherent to unique assignments
Stress related to supervisory, management, and administrative positions and responsibilities
Pre-and Post retirement stress
3.) It is important that the Training Unit include in its comprehensive program training such topics as the following:
Access to and use of psychological services
Cumulative career traumatic stress
Departmental intervention protocols
Diet and nutrition
Addictions – Alcohol and Prescription Drugs
Identification of at-risk personnel
Impact of the job on an officer’s family
Officer Wellness
Compassion Fatigue – other mechanisms of self care
Physical and psychological manifestations of stress
Physical fitness and health
Post – Traumatic Stress
Recognition of early warning signs of suicide
Recognition of early warning signs of trauma – related and chronic stress
Suicide Awareness, Prevention, and Intervention
4.) It is recommended that the Training Unit develop and present ongoing training for law enforcement spouses, significant others, and families. Such training should include recognition of warnings signs of trauma-related and chronic stress and methods of seeking assistance from agency vetted resources.
5.) The Training Unit should regularly promulgate supplemental educational material related to stress management, suicide prevention, and psychological resources, and should use the agency’s internal social media outlets as appropriate.
Policy Commentary
Inoculation should begin in the recruit academy for sworn personnel and in agency orientation sessions for civilian personnel, recognizing that both will be exposed to disturbing scenes and material during the course of their career with an agency. Such training must follow an officer throughout his or her career, knowing that the impact of stressful events varies with age, time on the job, an type of assignment. Training for supervisory an management personnel must focus not only on the stress they experience but also on identifying and effectively responding to the stress of the personnel under their command. Pre-retirement training should focus on the emotional differences between active and retired status and should prepare retiring officers for the fiscal changes they will undergo; post retirement retreats allow for continued camaraderie with officers and a forum for exchange of information with other retirees.