What is triage? and how is it important with both physical a…
What is “triage” and how is it important with both physical and psychological sufferers during a crisis or disaster situation?
Courage to Commit
Chapter Twelve: Now What?
I do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution and laws of this State, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and defend them against enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge, the duties of a peace officer, to the best of my ability, so help me God.
What next? When? The setting was 1944. My brother and I were taught quite young to offer our seats to older women as they boarded the streetcar,
to stand when the doctor entered the examining room, to respect our teachers and neighbors, the postman, the fireman, and above all the policeman who protected us. The kids then wanted to grow up to be a policeman, or at least have a badge. The officers knew us and managed a brief conversation when they came by. They were trusted and appreciated. My father was a physician who volunteered to serve in World War II. My mother was a highly respected civic leader whose advice was requested by her counterparts around the globe. My brother is also a respected physician and a veteran who was an extremely articulate young man.
The above introduction is a lead-in to what follows. Friday night at the family dinner table was a time for discussion of local, national, and international events. There were always guests both local and foreign with varying opinions, concerns, and solutions. It was over these lively dinners that I cut my teeth by saying nothing and hearing everything being discussed. I was learning the elements of effective and noneffective communication. I watched the body language, recognized growing tensions, listening for words designed to encourage agreement. I listened for styles that were convincing and reliable. I still remember the moment that sealed my decision to serve as a “wordsmith.” Words matter in all areas of our relationship, personal or professional.
My work during the past 30 years has been in the areas of psychotherapy, conflict resolution, crisis intervention, and motivation in the workplace. The single or most significant concern reported by patients, disputants, or workers was that we can’t communicate. Differences in backgrounds, culture, and value systems, the failure to listen, hear, clarify, show respect, or take responsibility, create deep problems. We Know What Happens Next.
Introduction to the Chapter
The setting is 2020. We know what happens next, but we just keep studying the question instead of doing something about the answers at which we have arrived. The one criterion for addressing police credibility is top-down systemic reform of the police organization itself. The following is the direct attempt by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to address the issues of police–citizen culture relationships. It is quoted here with full credit to IACP by the authors.
1. Police officers teamed in this manner should be fully accepting of this program for it to have a chance of working. Cops can be really skeptical.
2. Mental health personnel must be experienced.
3. Mental health personnel should have knowledge and experience with police matters and how the police may respond to them.
4. Those co-responding with police should not be trainees, interns, or practicum students in their respective fields.
5. Mental health personnel should have previous experience within the police culture.
6. Police should be educated and experienced in crisis intervention and mental health issues on a practical level.
7. Mental health personnel should have some direct police and law enforcement education and training so that they are aware of what the officer may do and how to support those actions. This is needed to maintain their own safety as well in what could become volatile situations.
8. Police should be well aware of the capabilities of their mental health co-responders and know when to utilize their skills and when not to utilize those skills.
9. There must be an ongoing and trusting relationship between the mental health responder and the assigned police officer.
10. Departments should take the time required to integrate the mental health worker with the officer and the officer with the mental health worker. Their first encounter should not be in the squad car on the first shift of co-responder deployment.
11. Co-responders should work together as an ongoing team.
12. Multiple teams of co-responders should work and train together to ensure that all are oriented in the same way and that each team can support the other teams in the field as needed.
13. Mental health co-responders should be highly experienced clinicians rather than newbies looking for volunteer experience.
14. Police co-responders should be highly experienced and tenured officers rather than rookies looking for a new assignment or who are forced into this situation.
15. Police officers should know what to expect from their mental health co-responder in the field setting. 16. Mental health co-responders should know what to expect from the officers with whom they are working.
17. In-depth communication skills must be fostered between the co-responders to ensure that they can work together and that they understand each other.
18. Both co-responders must know and understand the role of the other in responding to situations to which they may be called. Each must know who will lead in the various situations encountered and how the decision about leadership will be made between them in the field. This is no time for mixed or misunderstood communications and responses.
19. Mental health co-responders must have enough police orientation and training as will allow them to appreciate the role and responsibilities of their officer in the field.
Conclusion
Improving police credibility includes moving toward community policing, training officers in de-escalation skills and the use of nonlethal tactics, increasing the diversity of departments, improving data collection and public transparency, and enhancing the screening of police recruits’ actions and follow-thru from top to bottom.
Additionally:
1. Reinstate and maintain a full-time psychological services director. 2. Create hands-on communications laboratories with required use. 3. Allow officers time necessary to effectively manage the situations they encounter. 4. Always treat people as human beings, not just as a case. 5. Remember you are not required to like the person. You are required to do your job or quit.
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