Law enforcement leaders all over the United States want to prevent the stress of police work from undermining the mental and physical health and wellness of their staff. Though some stressors, such as potential exposure to violence, are inherent to policing careers, law enforcement agencies differ greatly in the challenges they face because of their size, resources, and the relationships between police and professional staff. Even within agencies, individual officers’ experiences vary based on their ranks, assignments, and roles. For a wellness and stress-reduction solution to be effective, it must be tailored to the needs of individuals within an agency. Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to find the exact right strategy among a large array of programs, which range from the very generic to the very specialized, many at budget-straining costs.

With funding from the Office of Community Policing Services (COPS Office), RTI International worked with the Green Bay (Wisconsin) Police Department and the Redlands (California) Police Department to address this problem and bring new clarity to the process of implementing health and wellness programs. Together, they developed the Customized Offerings for Mitigating and Preventing Agency-Specific Stress (COMPASS) Toolkit, a six-step process that defines staff needs and causes of stress, identifies actionable areas for improvements, guides program implementation, and assesses the effectiveness of the efforts—thereby improving the agency’s efficiency, effectiveness, and morale.

A targeted approach to the root causes of stress

Says Jenn Rineer, an industrial and organizational psychologist who specializes in occupational health and who co-authored the COMPASS Toolkit with Travis Taniguchi, a criminologist, “It’s unique in that its focus is on helping agencies identify the specific sources of stress in all areas of the agency, including leadership, and then customizing a response to that. Agencies put a lot of money and effort into wellness, but they don’t always know what the actual causes of stress are, or how their agency can best address them.”

As the authors point out, concerns about officer mental health often focus on exposure to traumatic incidents, but research shows that organizational stressors—such as agency culture and working relationships—are more prevalent and have damaging effects over time. These stressors can overflow into officers’ personal lives with negative impacts on their health and families. With the COMPASS Toolkit, agency executives can identify and understand the root causes of stress; select a targeted solution; and make meaningful, sustainable changes.

Detailed, step-by-step guidance

The toolkit walks readers through a vetted process that starts with a baseline assessment and ends with long-term sustainable action plans:

• Creating and distributing an assessment tool. Detailed instruction on preparing, customizing, and conducting a survey to collect information on what is stressing members of the staff and how they are coping
• Analyzing the data. How to use the data to identify and rank the stressors, gather additional data if needed, and identify a focus area for efforts
• Selecting and tailoring a strategy. Options for addressing stressors with linked resources and advice for choosing program champions
• Implementing an effective solution. Guidance for creating working groups and delivering training, if applicable
• Reinforcing the strategy and facilitating change. Advice for maximizing the impact of the strategies selected and institutionalizing the changes
• Conducting a follow-up assessment. How to compare results from the original survey with follow-up scores to understand if the intervention was effective
• Creating a sustainability plan. Guidance for periodic reassessments and getting buy-in from stakeholders or additional funding to maintain changes

Sample surveys and free support resources

According to Rachel Tolber, Chief of the Redlands Police Department, which has implemented the COMPASS Toolkit, the process was straightforward and easy. “The resources are really great, too,” she added. “You can find one to address almost any challenge, and we will probably use them again in the future.”

The toolkit offers more than 50 resources for helping to address five major areas of stress, including Physical Health and Safety, Interpersonal Problems, and Anti-Police Sentiment, as well as training or other support related to specific issues, which can range from the effect of work hours on family relations to the impact of crowd management in civil unrest situations.

Rineer notes that there are different levels of involvement required for both agencies and staff. “Users are offered a variety of options to align with what their agency has the bandwidth to do. These include printed guides, podcasts, and webinars as well as virtual and in-person trainings, all reviewed by RTI and free of charge.”

The toolkit also provides a variety of support items, such as sample surveys with guidance on scoring, messaging templates, strategies for in-depth interviewing, action planning templates, communications strategies, and sample emails for training follow-up.

Easy to use and customizable

Says Taniguchi, “There is a lot of information in this toolkit because the surveys must be very detailed to get a true picture of the challenges. But we streamlined the process for collecting data. It’s organized to minimize effort and written in a way that people who are non-technical or non-statistical can do it easily.

“It’s cost effective, too; the resources are free and there’s no special technological infrastructure required to use it. The survey can be a printed document or on a web-based platform, and distributed through email, for instance.”

Another feature that distinguishes this toolkit from other law enforcement surveys is that it covers all personnel. Says Chief Tolber, “We particularly liked the fact that it included professional staff. They are a huge and very important part of our organization, our agency’s face to the public. And we want to ensure that everybody is working at their optimum level and feeling good about their role in the organization.”

In summing up the benefits of the toolkit, Rineer says, “It’s designed to relieve stress at the source rather than just giving people a coping mechanism, which is a band aid approach. You can’t remove all stress—there will always be shift work and dangerous situations in law enforcement agencies—but like any occupation, there are things you can change, and this toolkit helps you do that.

“High work stress creates risk for police officers, their families, as well as for their agencies and the communities they are sworn to serve. The COMPASS Toolkit allows agencies to prioritize their wellness efforts and implement improvements that work for their unique needs.”

Faye C. Elkins
Sr. Technical Writer
COPS Office

Tweet