EP 28 ‘Stress and Policing: Understanding the Training, Policy, and Leadership Implications’ with Dr. Mariana Kaiseler.

According to a national survey of police mental health, a staggering 90% of police officers affected by stress reported stigma as a barrier to seeking mental health support.

In this very important interview, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr. Mariana Kaiseler, discusses the research that she and colleagues have published specifically  pertaining to the stress of police work and the many training, policy and leadership implications that need to be considered in order to help advance police officer mental health and resilience.

Two research papers used as the foundation for this interview are Ambulatory Assessment of Psychophysiological Stress among Police Officers published in the journal of Occupational Health, and Transitioning from Recruit to Officer: An Investigation of how Stress Appraisal and Coping Influence Work Engagement.

In this interview, we discuss:

·      Why stress is, or ought to be, such a concern for police trainers and agency leadership,

·      Chronic vs acute stress and the relationship between them.

·      The shocking reality that it is actually not the acute stress of incidents that officer encounter that put them at greatest risk of harm to their mental wellness, but organizational stress.

·       The deficiencies of organizational supports that are critical to help keep officers resilient and mentally healthy.

·      How the policing ‘culture’ causes officers to be reluctant to seek out help and will actually avoid critical social supports.

·      How poor officer wellness negatively impacts police / community trust.

·      The importance of intentional stress-management routines and how police trainers should understand their role as an essential component of helping their students develop intentional mental health strategies.

Please note, if you or any officer you know is experiencing the negative and possibility debilitating effects of stress, please be courageous and seek out life-changing help. The week that this interview was conducted, several police officers in the US and Canada took their lives by their own hand. Also, this same week, a report was released by the National Police Federation indicating that mental wellness amongst RCMP officers was at a point of crisis and still plummeting. This is a clarion call to action for police leadership.

If you need assistance or know of someone who does, in Canada, please consider contacting Canada Beyond The Blue (www.canadabeyondtheblue.com )a volunteer organization committed to providing a community of essential support to law enforcement members and their families. In the United States, contact COPLINE at www.copline.org or call their crisis line at 1-800-COPLINE.