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Key points
- The fallout of a police career often calls for enhanced support for post-service employees.
- Supportive police communities with lived experience can articulate the challenges of service-to-civilian transition through a common language.
- Post-service support can afford police veterans a relevant road map for rebuilding a life and identity away from the badge.
A police career is immensely rewarding but for some, the unintended consequences of the roles and tasks embedded in the police mission pose significant challenges to their well-being. Accordingly, peer support programs have become a camaraderie-based wellness response to the personal and professional difficulties encountered by actively serving personnel. Police veterans, however, go largely unacknowledged as they make the shift from service to civilian life, which often leaves them ill-equipped to manage the “residue” of that career. Peer-to-peer support can be a valuable reintegration strategy for this population thereby affording veterans a relevant road map for rebuilding a life and identity away from the badge.
Peer Support in Policing
Emerging in major law enforcement agencies in the 1980s, peer support programs were created primarily as a response to critical incidents with the goals of offering emotional support and anticipating potential difficulties (Reese, 1995). From officer-involved shootings and line-of-duty deaths to officer suicide, hostage negotiations, and multiple fatality situations, such events are outside the normal range of human experience, which can challenge an officer’s ability to cope. Moreover, peers are often the first to notice when another officer is psychologically distressed and, given the stigma associated with mental health assistance, those in need are more likely to confide in one of their own (Everly, 2015; Kamena et al., 2011).
With paradigm shifts in officer wellness, especially in the wake of 9/11, the scope of peer support has expanded beyond just the trauma associated with high-risk events. It has become increasingly beneficial for other occupational stressors or personal life challenges including burnout, vicarious trauma, injury, illness, internal investigations, relationship and parenting difficulties, financial hardships, and addiction (Creamer et al., 2012; Gupton et al., 2011; Kroll, 2014). Peer support is also known to facilitate officer engagement with mental health and well-being services, especially when experiencing psychosocial symptoms that impair functioning (Kamena et al., 2011).
Unintended Consequences
While the purpose and value of peer support has been clearly identified and established for serving personnel, officers who retire or otherwise exit their careers lose ready access to vital social support. I discussed a number of these implications in my post “Peer Support Beyond the Badge.” Police veterans are an elusive population with unique needs who can be difficult to “capture,” especially when it comes to a voluntary and consumer-driven business such as peer support. Nevertheless, leaving a law enforcement career should never presume that the complications of that career will cease to exist or aren’t worthy of acknowledgment or high-level resources.
For all the immediate cause-and-effect impacts that peer support has been engineered for, there are unintended consequences of the job which are more subtle and not closely related in time and space. As a result, officers may experience problems that are not evident until after their service is finished including:
- Unprocessed trauma
- Unresolved impacts from negative climate or moral injury
- Unresolved impacts from duty-related injuries or illness
- Challenges of identity change, purpose, and belonging
- Learning new cultural competencies
- Finding new ways to apply skills and talents
- Building and sustaining healthy relationships.
Post-Service Intelligibility
When it comes to the issue of intelligibility (or the ease with which we can understand one another), the concepts of experience and sameness are important distinctions to make. Having an experience of something makes it more relatable or understandable than when we don’t. We often say to others, “Been there, done that.” Experience, then, becomes a shared reality between two people that can outweigh the process of trying to put yourself in another’s shoes. Moreover, having the same experience can make something even more understandable than just having a similar one. While similarity can count for understanding some things, it may not count for others because it still possesses too many variables that make it unique to the individual.
As a result, a lot of well-intentioned support can fall flat for no other reason than, "You never wore a badge and gun." While this may not be the case for every veteran, cultural competence is a factor that can’t be ignored when serving a population who once relied on loyalty, trust, and credibility to survive the job. Even relatability to cops who are actively serving can pose challenges for a transitioning officer. Although the experience of policing may be the same or similar, they will not have gone through the act of separating and the process of adjusting to a life where your job is no longer the center of attention. Moreover, the pathways for which officers exit their careers are variable and will carry its own emotional weight.
Enter post-service peer support. Such a resource can enable transitioning officers to cope through the experiences of others and help them pursue a life characterized by pride, productivity, and healthy relationships. Instead of forcing a linear pattern of recovery (which often happens through medical models), officers can connect with others on their timeline, especially during the first year when reintegration can be most challenging. In fact, it’s not uncommon for officers to feel “sucker-punched” by transitional issues given the honeymoon period that generally follows an exit. For many cops, it takes being separated from their careers for a while before they realize the gravity of their situation or are able to see the real and symbolic value policing had in their life.
In my experience, this is where officers end up “stuck” when trying to function with a confused identity and cope with a new social and cultural system that doesn’t seem to understand what they're going through. This dynamic alone can drive isolation, loneliness, and major wedges in relationships.
Pathways for Peer Support
If you are an active law enforcement officer or police veteran who wishes to seek the support of others with transitional experience, consider the following:
- Investigate your agency’s resources. Many departments (especially large ones) have internal peer support teams. Some of them offer end-of-career resources and are staffed by retired cops. These agencies may also loan out their services to other organizations upon request. Rural law enforcement departments typically have multi-agency support programs that cover larger geographic areas and may comprise other first responders (Bohl-Penrod & Clark, 2017).
- A number of nonprofit organizations serve public safety veterans as their primary consumers. Others include them alongside military veterans. Some provide their services to parent agencies and mental health organizations on referral while others exist as stand-alone programs. They may consist of teams of veterans and clinicians who offer emotional support, education, and practical activities to small groups or they may conduct more individualized, one-on-one coaching. It's not uncommon for nonprofits to offer wellness retreats, “boot camps,” and seminars (often free of charge) and will use camaraderie and peer support as cornerstones of an integrated wellness plan.
- Peer support doesn’t have to be a professional service. If you can connect with just one person who you can trust, and have ready access to, then you are well on your way. This person could be another cop from your agency, someone you met at a training seminar, a family member or friend who also wore the uniform, or someone entirely removed from your agency, state, or country. Telephone calls, texts, emails, and face-to-face video chats are all simple and informal methods that typically won’t require a litany of red tape. Online communities, forums, and hotlines have become popular outlets as are social media and networking groups, podcasts, memoirs, and wellness-oriented self-help books.
Note: The information in this post is for educational purposes only and is not intended to provide clinical or legal advice.
Copyright © Brian A. Kinnaird. All rights reserved.
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References
Bohl-Penrod, N. K., & Clark, D. W. (2017). Peer Support in Public Safety Organizations. In C. Mitchell, & E. Dorian (Ed.), Police Psychology and Its Growing Impact on Modern Law Enforcement (pp. 237-250). IGI Global.
Creamer, M. C., Varker, T., Bisson, J., Darte, K., Greenberg, N., Lau, W., & Forbes, D. (2012). Guidelines for peer support in high-risk organizations: An international consensus study using the Delphi method. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 25(2), 134–141.
Everly, G. S. (2015). Assisting individuals in crisis (5th ed.). Baltimore, MD: International Critical Incident Stress Foundation.
Gupton, H. M., Axelrod, E., Cornell, L., Curran, S. F., Hood, C. J., Kelly, J., & Moss, J. (2011). Support and sustain: Psychological intervention for law enforcement personnel. The Police Chief, 78, 92–97.
Kroll, R. (2014). Managing the dark side: Treating officers with addiction. The Police Chief, 81, 48–51.
Reese, J. T. (1995). A history of police psychological services. In M. I. Kurke & E. M. Scrivner (Eds.), Police psychology into the 21st century (31–44). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
