Dr. Christine Courbasson is the Chief Psychologist at Calian for Eastern Canada. She is a registered psychologist with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She has more than 20 years of experience creating and delivering programs to help individuals identify, understand and manage their addiction and mental health challenges. Over the last six years, Dr. Courbasson has focused more specifically on candidate selection, suitability for firearms issuance and fitness for duty of individuals in law enforcement positions. We spoke to her about what those challenges look like among today’s police services and how pre-hire assessments and ongoing support can make a difference.
Today’s police services face unique challenges in fostering wellness and resiliency among their members. What are examples of successful strategies that ensure recruits have the support they need?
The Ontario police have identified mental health and wellness as a priority, and that’s been a big step forward. Work is being done to break down the stigma related to mental health and addiction in policing.
For a long time, there has been this idea that police officers are strong to the point of managing the negative impact of even the most horrendous situations on their own. This has contributed to some officers who struggled—or are struggling—with mental health issues not feeling safe disclosing their difficulties to their colleagues or superiors. The trouble is, after a while, many officers who keep those struggles to themselves end up getting worse, and by the time those issues come to the attention of their partner, colleagues or even the media, they’ve already been through a lot of suffering. I think police services in Ontario have done a good job at recognizing that, but there’s more to do in terms of breaking that down.
If we’re talking about successful strategies, one thing I’ve seen work is pairing experienced officers with new recruits. When this happens, the experienced officers can be role models and teach new recruits how to handle stressful situations and seek support. They can be the ones that say, “Ok, I’m getting stressed, and I need to do something to offset that stress,” and then show the recruits effective ways to address those root causes or their impact rather than ignore them.
How has the COVID crisis increased awareness of the need for mental health support for first responders?
It has become more stressful out there for everyone. You have to consider that people have been confined to their homes for two years. The illness itself, uncertainty of its course and recovery, the lockdowns and their associated crowding effects to name a few, created mental health problems for many people who were psychologically healthy and worsened the condition of those who already had mental health challenges. This created many tense and stressful situations for police officers when dealing with the public.
As with everything else, it’s important to recognize that everyone has different reactions to COVID and issues that lead them to behave a certain way. That includes police officers, who need ongoing mental health safeguards and support to manage those stressful situations as they add up.
How can data from pre-hire assessments be used to create personalized programs for officers once they are selected to join a police service?
During a pre-assessment, an officer may show that while they technically have what it takes to do the job, they may be weaker in certain key competencies, like managing stress and overcoming difficult problems. With that data, you can create strategies to build those competencies to prevent problems from developing, maybe by additional training or, like I said earlier, pairing them with an officer who can help them develop those skills. Then, you can monitor their progress as they ease into the job and use those insights to adjust your strategy and give them more opportunities to grow.
You might also use data from a pre-assessment to monitor strengths that might become weaknesses in certain situations. For example, if someone is high in perfectionism in their pre-assessment, that can be useful. But in times of stress, that trait can also mean their attempts at perfection make them more susceptible to burning out, which can negatively affect work, and which can also manifest in problems at home, not getting enough sleep, or letting self care go by the wayside. So again, it’s using that pre-assessment data to identify competencies, form strategies and prevent or reduce impairment.
How does this approach change at different stages of an officer’s career?
Even if somebody performs well at the beginning, we don’t want to forget about them. We need to continually monitor those competencies because we know the job tends to change officers. Some become more hardened or less willing to trust other people. We also see that they become more stressed and exhibit signs of PTSD, leading to family problems that tend to get bigger over time if nothing is done about them.
That’s all to say that the approach we need to take with young officers—the assessments, the monitoring, the support—needs to continue. And we know from research that having those assessments upfront and addressing those competencies and weaknesses makes a difference. Officers who have access to those services tend to have more favourable work outcomes, better social support, less exhaustion and fewer health complaints.
Addiction and substance abuse are often the results of underlying mental health struggles, which can be exacerbated in high-stress occupations like policing. What approaches have you seen to address these difficult problems in police services?
Addiction and substance abuse are issues in policing, and officers don’t often talk about them because they’re afraid to be judged. And it’s not just alcohol or drugs; it can manifest as gambling, sex addiction or other less obvious ways.
So again, there’s value in conducting assessments to understand where the addiction or substance abuse issues come from. Is it a response to a mental health challenge? Was it triggered by something that happened? You need to understand what’s behind it all.
When addressing the issue, the key is to collaborate as much as possible and offer the intensity of support based on the severity of the burden. Not everybody needs to go to residential treatment; sometimes, a day treatment or one they can do from home is effective. Sometimes they just need psychotherapy support once a week or twice a week. Whatever the solution is deemed to be, it’s important to take action and be consistent because once somebody develops a substance use problem or a behavioural addiction, then they’re more at risk of falling back later on. So, you want to make sure you put in place a very good support system and monitor them as they get better.
Lastly, it’s important to show police officers they’re not alone. I’ve spoken to a lot of officers in treatment, and they feel ostracized. That leads to isolation, which can make mental health problems worse. What we need to do is to be more open and supportive; if people have been through addiction or substance abuse issues, we need to build workplace cultures where they can stand up and say so and discuss what helped them so others know they can get better too.
Overall, we must recognize that mental health problems, substance abuse, and behavioural addiction do happen in the police community, and that it makes a difference when we talk about these challenges openly and work together to support officers who are affected.
Learn more about Calian and its psychological assessment services online.
