Resilience is a Career-Long Mindset

Society is finally beginning to understand the mental toll that responding to traumatic calls takes on a police officer. 

As I walked around the International Association of Chiefs of Police Officer Safety and Wellness Symposium last week, I saw numerous companies offering resources for police officers.

Although it’s a great thing to have so many resources available, almost every booth I visited had solutions for officers post-traumatic incident…not pre-traumatic incident.

Taking care of our officers pre-traumatic incident is just as important (if not more) than post-traumatic incident. But how do we do this?

The key to protecting the mental health of law-enforcement officers in 2025 is focusing on building resilience throughout the career of a police officer. The needs of a recruit in the academy are different than those of a five-year officer, which are different than those of a 15 year officer, which are different than an officer close to retirement.

Resilience training in the academy is a good start, but recruits don’t have the experience to apply what they’ve learned during the training. It’s good to have a foundation, but training needs to occur throughout the career of an officer.

At about the five-year mark, a police officer has experienced more trauma than most normal citizens will experience in a lifetime. Because of this, it is imperative that officers receive continuing education on how to build resilience.

A couple of ways that that can happen are below:

• Consistent training on building resilience from experienced instructors that are not only experts in the field, but have experienced traumatic incidents similar to the students.

• Conversations from leadership on resilience during briefings to keep it front of mind.

• Access to online classes and resources that focus on building resilience.

• System access to mental health professionals to assist them with building the tools to become more resilient.

You can read more about how an agency can build resilience in their officers in my blog post here.

As officers progress through their career, the impact of cumulative trauma takes its toll. If we expect our officers to perform at a high level, we must address the cumulative trauma they’ve acquired throughout their career.

Cumulative trauma, if not addressed through becoming a more resilient officer, often leads to burnout and compassion fatigue. This is when the resilience techniques listed above are of the upmost importance.

More experienced officers tend to be more resource resistant, especially if they haven’t been participating in resilience training in the early stages of their career.  Years of evading their emotions because that was what was “expected” of them causes unhealthy coping methods such as alcohol dependence, infidelity, and emotional outbursts.  As officers mature in their career, normalizing conversations around mental health will help more senior officers continue to nurture their own emotional resilience. 

Building emotional resilience for senior officers will prepare them for the mental toll that retirement can take.  Statistically, a retired officer is most likely to take their own life during the first year of retirement.

Both leadership and officers must have a dog in the fight when it comes to building resilience. When I began to take ownership for my own mental health, I flourished.

I went from numb and uncaring to someone that cries during movies. I gained ownership over my own emotions and was able to regulate myself much better, but this did not happen until I began seeking help for my own mental health and became a more resilient person.

If I can do it, anybody reading this blog can. 

We offer a great training called “Police Resiliency and Critical Incident Mindset” to help officers build resilience to better navigate a career in policing. If you are interested in bringing this training to your department, contact us.