How Increasing Officer Resilience Will Impact Community Relationships

Throughout history, police officers have been expected to experience high levels of trauma without the proper resources. 

This has affected their mental health in ways that society has failed to understand. 

With the recent focus on police wellness, the correct conversations are finally happening. These conversations are occurring around the country in both small and large police agencies.The shift towards police resilience is still in its infancy, but its effects are already beginning to materialize.  We have a long way to go as a profession, but we now have a better understanding of how a lack of resources and emphasis on resilience is improving the quality of life for individual officers.

Like any large culture change in policing, there will be other impacts of cultivating more resilient officers.  One of these impacts is how it will change the relationship between officers and the community. We’ve all heard the phrase “hurt people, hurt people”, but the flip side of that is “healed people heal people”.  This means that people that are more resilient and prioritize their own mental health will have a positive effect on those around them.  As officers begin their journey to becoming more resilient and healthier, they will be better positioned to have positive relationships within the community.Studies show that prioritizing officer resilience will reduce stress and burnout, enabling officers to engage more thoughtfully and compassionately with community members. Mentally-well officers will be able to police in a manner that does not cause undue conflict within the community.A resilient officer also makes better decisions during stressful situations. A more measured response will allow officers to de-escalate situations during interactions with community members. When an officer fails to de-escalate a situation, excessive use of force is often the result.  These incidents chip away at community trust, further driving a wedge between police officers and those they have sworn to protect.At Bitsko Consulting, we teach officers how to handle the difficult emotions they will feel during a critical incident.  We do this by providing tactics to mitigate the effects of harmful, but natural, emotional responses (such as fear).

Building this type of resilience will reduce the number of failures when it matters, such as during an active shooter response.  The community must trust officers to protect its most vulnerable members from those that intend to do them harm.  Any failure to act on the officers’ part during one of these incidents can have disastrous effects on how the community perceives its police officers.

Just like the focus on officer resilience, an increase in trust of law enforcement will take time to happen.  I recently posted a blog about how resilience training should be done over the course of an entire career.  You can read it here.  Culture change happens in small increments over a long period.  Police leaders must remain consistent in their focus to improve the resilience and mental health of officers, because a resilient officer makes better decisions under stress. 

If you want to schedule resilience training in your agency, contact us here.