Law enforcement professionals are no strangers to stressful situations. It’s no secret, then, that mental health issues and burnout are common in the field. Ahead, William Barker, Chief Psychologist, Calian, discusses the importance of identifying and addressing mental health challenges in the sector – especially in a time when maintaining a full and healthy force is becoming a challenge in itself.
Recruitment is an ongoing challenge for police services in Ontario and across the country. What do you think contributes to the difficulty in finding the right candidates for policing roles?
There are several reasons why it’s difficult finding the right candidates. One of the more recent obstacles, of course, is that COVID interfered with most law enforcement agencies’ recruitment efforts. Now, everybody is trying to catch up and hire into the positions that have accumulated since.
The broader challenge that most HR people would agree on is that there has been a societal change regarding the skillset with which law enforcement candidates are presenting themselves. There are competencies or skills that people need to be successful in policing; psychological and emotional attributes like self-discipline, self-control, and other dimensions that are critical to effective performance as a police officer. And yet, these aren’t as common in the generation that is presenting itself for consideration at this point.
For these reasons and more, an increasing number of law enforcement agencies are recognizing the importance of the psychological pre-screen not only in terms of selecting appropriate candidates for policing but also in terms of mitigating risk throughout their careers. These assessments focus on things like resiliency and other skills that candidates either have or don’t have when the hiring occurs. That adds an additional – but critical – layer that absolutely must be considered when finding the “right” candidate.
You have been conducting pre-hiring assessments for more than 40 years. What has changed in terms of the stressors that new recruits face now versus a decade ago?
When I started in 1978, we were beginning to see more sophisticated protocols and procedures form around how law enforcement professionals respond to situations. That continued and now we see much clearer guidelines on dealing with dangerous and high-stress scenarios, which is a good thing.
On the public side, however, there are variables that have made the job more stressful. Today, everything is videoed on a smartphone and people are much more willing to express criticism and dissatisfaction with policing before getting all the facts on the table. So I think there are variables from the societal side and the policing side that have made it a much more difficult, complex, and stressful activity.
How do your assessments identify and address the competencies that will enable recruits to excel in the field?
There is a set of prescribed competencies that we evaluate for during our assessments. They include emotional resilience, emotional regulation, and adaptability – which are skill sets that we know to be vital for success in policing. There’s been a lot of research done that identifies the predictive validity of these competencies, meaning that the research does link them to successful performance in the job and the tests we use, in turn, have good construct validity that allows us to measure for these competencies.
A 2021 CPA survey found that “presenteeism” – that is, coming to work when physically or mentally unwell – was reported by more than one-third of police surveyed. Why is that risky for inexperienced officers in particular?
Few other occupations compare to policing in terms of the stress individuals experience on the job. Their job can obviously be as dangerous as intervening in armed situations. The public doesn’t know – or want to know – the horrors that may exist in the dark, but police have to deal with that. So I think the fact that one-third are saying that they’re coming to work physically or mentally unwell is unsurprising. That said, if there are physical or mental issues that might interfere with a police officer’s performance, then that’s a concern because if they’re not “firing on all cylinders,” it puts them and the public at risk.
Why might officers try to “hide” mental health challenges? What can be done in response?
In my experience, police officers are historically disinclined to admit to having mental health struggles because they’re afraid they’ll be stigmatized. In the past, it might have been seen as a weakness or risk to one’s job. So those personal issues end up getting buried, only to impact their performance in a negative way. Obviously, in recent years, progess has been made in this area.
Responding to that problem starts with adopting policies and procedures that are supportive of officers who present with mental health problems, as well as showing your team that these challenges are not a weakness, but a common consequence of doing a stressful job. It’s important that police officers experiencing these difficulties be responded to with compassion and sensitivity and support, and that there are measures in place to check in or reduce their exposure to highly-stressful roles or scenarios as they heal.
How, overall, can law enforcement agencies address risks of mental health and burnout?
It behooves all organizations, and especially policing, to be sensitive to the fact that the job can have a lasting negative effect on individuals. And in many cases, you won’t realize when individuals are having mental hardships until they start to manifest it. That’s why the selection process is so important, because it’s an opportunity to measure a candidate’s competencies and provide agencies with data on those skill sets that would predict if they are suited for the stresses ahead.
It starts with selection obviously, but it certainly doesn’t end there. You can do your best to select the best people with the competencies that would predict their success on the job, and then you train them and give them the skill set that allows them to know how to do the job. After that, though, the wear and tear of the job can still have a deleterious effect on the police officer’s mental health. That’s why, in addition to those upfront assessments, you need to provide supports, wellness checks, and mental health safeguarding throughout their career.
Have you seen progress in identifying and addressing mental health and burnout in policing?
I have. Through my work with Calian, I’ve seen that police departments are much more committed to the idea of wellness in the workplace. There’s a greater acceptance of the fact that people aren’t Superman or Superwoman and that normal people can have normal problems associated with the wear and tear of daily life as police officers. And because of these, many departments are trying to make it easier for police officers to reach out for help and connect them with services and support when they do. At the same time, I’m seeing more departments embed regular wellness checks as part of the operations. These are all positive steps to making law enforcement a safer, more welcoming profession.
Learn more about Calian and its pyschological assessment services online.
