Thunder Bay police officers are using a tool from the FBI to help them avoid the pitfalls of the job by thinking differently.
Joseph Collins is a Police Chief in Wisonsin, and tells us seeing repeated trauma can change the officer’s brain to default into believing every event is traumatic.
“Everybody out there potentially is looking at me in a negative world, or a negative component. What we do is give them the mindset and skills to change that way of thinking… is that some of those activities, maybe it’s an experience I need to learn from.”
The chief adds mental, physical, social and spiritual aspects are all discussed, to handle scenes most of us wouldn’t experience in a life-time.
“Because our officers around the world will see more traumatic situations on a day to day basis than most people will ever experience in their lives. And our officers are human beings, so these things impact their lives.”
Collins adds this helps officers learn from an event to better handle the next call.
And, a Thunder Bay inspector is thankful officers are learning greater resiliency when working in this city.
Derek West tells us they’re adding the program to what the local force has been doing for a few years.
“Everyday our officers are out there, they’re in the front lines, dealing with a lot of the things we know about already. There’s addiction and mental health issues in this community, it’s no secret. Our officers are there everyday to support people, help people and get them the support they need.”
The police inspector adds there’s an instructor from the provincial police college on hand to observe this program, which is in Canada for the first time.
