Tag: stress management training for police officers

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Police Officers Arrested – What’s the Problem?

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There seems to have been a rash of police officers arrested lately and I wonder what we as a profession are going to do about it.

We talk about the effects of stress on the job a lot here at CopsAlive.com and we talk about police officer suicide, alcohol abuse, divorce, domestic violence but this is one of the side effects that we don’t talk about too often.  Is this representative of a few “bad apples” or is it a bigger issue of officers not being able to handle the stresses of the job.  Does that mean we picked the wrong people for the job or did the job get to these men who were basically good people?

March 23, 2010
Colorado state trooper arrested on DUI charges
In this case an on-duty trooper was stopped in his patrol car by another agency and arrested for investigation of DUI.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14735791?source=rss

April 6, 2010
Westminster police officer and corrections officer held in kidnap, rape of woman
In this case two law enforcement officers are charged with the kidnapping and violent rape of a woman who they saw working in a bar.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/06/local/la-me-officers-arrested6-2010apr06
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The Future of Stress Management for Law Enforcement

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Teams of LE field professionals conducted hundreds of interviews prior to creating the US Department of Justice’s 222 page proposal to create Law Enforcement Stress Management Training in 1996.  The results can by synopsized as follows: EAP services, CI training, and city/county-wide services are necessary, but not enough.  The government’s top noted benefits of a preventative stress management program are:
•    to provide a confidential, specialized approach to treating and reducing stress for officers and their families, and to improve their ability to cope with stress on their own (most officers do not trust–or use–city or county programs)
•    to increase officer morale and productivity
•    to increase the agency’s overall efficiency and effectiveness Continue reading

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Police Officers Need to Learn to Manage Stress Before it Ruins their Lives and Careers

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Here we tell the story of Chris Prochut (pronounced “Pro-Hut”) who was a Commander for the Bolingbrook Police Department at the height of the Drew Peterson investigation, who nearly lost his life, but instead lost his career.  Watch this Fox News video then Page down to listen to our interview with Chris.

From age 10, Chris Prochut knew he wanted to be a police officer.
Upon graduation from High School in 1991, he was hired as a part-time animal control officer for the Bolingbrook Police Department.
He advanced to full-time status as a Police Cadet in 1993.
In 1995, Chris was selected to serve the Village of Bolingbrook as a 911 Police & Fire Dispatcher.
After graduating with a Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice Chris was hired as a Bolingbrook Police Officer in April 1996.
In August 2002, Chris was promoted to the rank of Sergeant where he supervised the C.O.P.S. (where he had worked) Unit, Animal Control, and Code Enforcement Unit.
He attended the Northwestern University School of Police Staff and Command in January 2005 where he was chosen as Class President and was selected to receive the Kreml Leadership Award… Continue reading

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Creating Peer and Family Support Groups for Police Agencies

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I had a chance to interview three people who are involved in the Evansville Indiana Police Department’s Peer Support and Family Support Groups. I spoke with Police Chief Brad Hill, Sgt. Dave Barron and his wife Lori Barron in what proved to be a very informative interview.

Sergeant Barron was involved in a fatal shooting in 2003 and was then instrumental in the creation of the the department’s Peer Support Team. Because of what happened to her husband and it’s effects on her and other members of their family Lori, who is a cardiac rehab nurse, was involved in starting the Family Support Group for their Police Department. Chief Brad Hill, a 29-year veteran of the Evansville Police Department, was sworn in to office as chief in January 2004 and has been instrumental in the development of both teams through his support and leadership.

If you are considering starting either or both of these kinds of groups for your department you might ask yourself:

How does your department support officers involved in a shooting?
What about other traumatic events like the injury of an officer or their partner, how do you support them then?
How do you handle the effects of major natural disasters or mass injury accidents on the members of your department?
Do you provide support to officers who have handled cases of injured or murdered children?

What about the family of those officers involved in any of the events mentioned above?

The Evansville Police Department in Indiana has experienced all of those things and they have learned from their experiences and recognized that they need to provide… Continue reading

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TPCG Helps Police Officers Manage Stress

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As the founder and CEO of Trance Personnel Consulting Group (TPCG) I am proud to be working with CopsAlive.com to help police officers and other law enforcement professionals learn to cope with the stress that you endure on a day to day basis.

TPCG has chosen a field thick with stress, trauma, denial, depression, overwhelming cynicism, abuse and suicide. Providing stress management and emotional survival tools to law enforcement agencies is not something that I take lightly. Never before have we encountered a group of people so steeped in all the many realms of societal dysfunction. These men and women are asked and expected to deal with worst case scenarios on a daily basis while many of us sip our morning coffee, contemplate our day, or tuck our children in at night. Of course there are other trauma-centric professions… Continue reading