Maya McFadden Photo
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Steven Marans, Chief Otoniel Reyes, MPH Hilary Hahn at press conference.
New Haven police have been getting training on how to help families cope on scene with violent and traumatic incidents — and the deaprtment is ready to share that training with others.
The Yale Child Study Center partnered with the New Haven Police Department (NHPD) to develop the training program for police officers, which will now be offered to departments nationwide.
The co-developers are collaborating with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP),the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, and the U.S. Department of Justice to launch a “toolkit” and online training series helping officers to learn to better respond to children and families exposed to violence and identifying what stress reactions can look like.
The initiative was announced Monday at a press conference hosted at police headquarters.
The toolkit is part of recent NHPD efforts toward “better policing” Chief Otoniel Reyes said. The training — conducted by police in conjunction with Yale Child Study experts — is aimed at empowering officers to respond to violent crimes and address issues of trauma caused by violence. “This is not about making police officers into social workers. This is about recognizing that the healing needs to start as soon as possible when there’s a traumatic event,” Reyes said.
The NHPS has been collaborating with the Yale Child Study Center since the 1990s as part of the development of community policing, pairing clinicians with beat officers to help children at the scene of violent incidents and then to follow up with them. The new toolkit focuses on ways to provide a sense of security and calm in tense situations.
“We don’t just see ourselves as law enforcement officers. We don’t just see ourselves as the individuals that are standing in the way of crime happening. We also see ourselves as people that can help build a community,” Reyes said.
Resaerch says responses for trauma range from biological to neurological to psychological. Trauma from violence can lead to psychological, physical, or behavioral issues, school troubles, substance abuse, or early death, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro noted at the press conference.
“It empowers officers to recognize that they can do more than stop the violence. They can start the healing,” DeLauro said.
Assistant Chief Renee Dominguez.
Assistant Chief Renee Dominguez (pictured) helped to train every NHPD officer last year in the toolkit. The department’s 20 trainers range from supervisors to patrol officers. “It will help for any department to have more positive interactions and not only be offering support at a scene,” she said
The toolkit educates officers on how to “regain control in the wake of overwhelming experiences and responses,” said Steven Marans, director of the Childhood Violent Trauma Center at the Yale School of Medicine.
In the process of transforming policing as we know it, the change of how we train police from the "good guys vs bad guys" and "us vs them" war-like approach to a new approach of deescalation, compassion and intervention and community involvement will only help to make our communities safer, our police safer, and to help heal our community. But not only the victims and the bystanders and witnesses need counseling and therapy to help them heal from a traumatic event, our police officers and firefighters and EMT/Paramedic first responders need regular counseling and therapy to help them cope with the traumatic events they face on a regular basis. There has been much study lately about our military suffering PTSD and "moral injury," and how it repeatedly impacts our veterans and our military service members who have seen active duty. I can't help but think that our first responders are asked to work with people at the worst moments of our lives, and to repeatedly put themselves in harms way, and how hard it must be to remain compassionate and caring and not disassociate themselves from their feelings and their humanity in order to face the trauma every day and continue to function. In order for first responders to remain psychologically healthy, they need to have access to counseling and support of mental health professionals to process the trauma they face in the line of duty, and to prevent moral injury to their psyche.