Positive Psychology is the science of promoting well-being and optimized lives. It is a new branch of psychology that uses scientific understanding and interventions to aid in the achievement of a flourishing life. As such it provides an additional piece to psychology by focusing not on the treatment of dysfunction, but rather on the enhancement and strengthening of human functioning. IPRU work in this area focuses on training of critical skills that allow first responders to become resilient practitioners. Professionals within the caring professions, particularly in the sub-field of Forensic Psychology often work with challenging and high risk populations and in situations such as mental health and crime, and are often entering first responder jobs that require long or shift hours in high risk and high stress situations such as prisons, hospitals, law enforcement and the courts, and working with clients facing emotional, psychological and legal challenges. It is well documented that professionals within these fields often suffer high levels of stress, exhaustion and burnout due to the emotional nature of their jobs. Practitioners in these fields therefore need high levels of resilience skills and resources in order to withstand the demands of these types of careers, protect their own well-being. Healthy and flourishing people lead to professionals who lead with a disposition and energy that has a positive impact on their clients and organizations, and as such function at a higher level of effectiveness as professionals, and in addition possess the toolkits to advise their clients and organizations to flourish.
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Multiple Dates Law Enforcement RESilience Training
Dec 6th 2022 Burnout and the Law Enforcement Exodus Crisis: Causes, Symptoms and Solutions
Sept 2nd 2021 Burnout in Law Enforcement & First Responders
Nov 18th 2020 Resilience Training for Law Enforcement
May 11th 2020 Resilience Defined
Law Enforcement RESilience (RES) Project
The Law Enforcement RESilience project aims to build an evidence base to support practice-informed and evidence-based resilience training for law enforcement and other first responders. The project includes a comprehensive systematic review on the various mental health issues present in law enforcement and other first responder occupations, the stressors associated with such occupations, especially Burnout, and how resilience training can help officers recover more quickly from adversity and with less negative impact, all of which is currently being used to further support a practice-informed and evidence-based Law Enforcement RESilience Training Program.
Current Key Research Projects:
- Prevalence Rates: A systematic review providing an overview of what different groups of first responders (police, corrections, fire, etc) meet in terms of adversity on the job, and the reported types and prevalence levels of psychological impact (eg PTSD, Compasion Fatigue, Burnout)
- Burnout: A systematic review of the scientific literature on Burnout in law enforcement. Review includes 143 articles published between 1983-2021 across 32 countries, including a total of 143,548 officers.
- Resilience: A systematic review of the scientific literature on Resilience in law enforcement. Review includes 72 articles published between 2006-2021 across 19 countries, including a total of 31,396 officers.
Recent Updates:
- Salfati, C. G. & Korzun, E. A. (2022, September) Resilience Training in Law Enforcement: A Systematic Review of What Works. Presentation at the Society of Police and Criminal Psychology, Quebec City. Canada.
- Salfati, C. G. & Niremberg, K. (2022, September) Burnout in Law Enforcement: A Systematic Review of the Problem. Presentation at the Society of Police and Criminal Psychology, Quebec City. Canada.
- Salfati, C. G. & Korzun, E. A. (2022, March) Burnout in Law Enforcement: A Critical, but Missing Element of Resilience Training Programs. International Associations of Chiefs of Police Officer Wellness & Safety Annual Conference. Atlanta, Georgia.
- Salfati, C. G. (2022, February) Invited Plenary: Burnout in Times of COVID. Fraternal Order of Police, Officer Wellness Summit. Nashville, TN.
- Salfati, C. G. (2019, September) Resilience Training for Recovery and Prevention of Burnout. Annual Meeting of the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. Scottsdale, Arizona.
Chicago Law Enforcement RESilience Project
The Chicago RESilience project is a project funded by Chicago Police Department and Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJA). It is a training and research project based on the IPRU RESilience Training Program delivered to 11,500 Chicago police officers, specifically looking at the impact of reactive and proactive mental and emotional resilience training on officer wellness. The program includes an initial in-person training segment and a 3-month training booster segment delivered online to reinforce the training. The program also includes a train-the-trainer component aiming to train trainers to facilitate to increase impact. Officers are surveyed again 6 months post training, and includes measures testing for each element in the training program, illness measures, wellness measures, and training delivery impact measures. The project aims to identify key. The research aims to evaluate implementation of law enforcement resilience training as it relates to identifying the evidence for the resilience tools most relevant to law enforcement, and identifying best practice on training delivery that allows for the highest level of training impact.
Recent Updates:
- Salfati, C. G. & Schultz, E. (2023, January) Invited Talk: Identifying The Relationship Between Officer Demographics And Reported Types And Levels Of Stressors, Wellness And Resilience To More Systematically Structure A Comprehensive Law Enforcement Resilience & Wellness Program. Fraternal Order of Police, Professionals Forum, Officer Wellness Summit. Nashville, TN.
New Jersey Law Enforcement RESilience Project
The New Jersey RESilience project is a collaboration between Dr. Salfati and Dr. Wiltsey at New Jersey City University. The project is based on The New Jersey Resiliency Training Program, delivered out of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice in the Office of the Attorney General. The program is being delivered to 35,000 New Jersey police officers and aims to provide a healthier environment within the organization, promote better relations with officers in the community, and quell the current epidemic of law enforcement suicides, and aims to change not only the impact on individual officers, but also aims to change organizational culture to support increased officer wellness. The research connected with the program is surveying officers using a number of key measures prior to the resilience training, and 6 months post training to measure the overall impact of the training on officer wellness.
Recent Updates:
- Wiltsey, M. T., Salfati, C. G., & Korzun, E. A. (2002, September) Building Evidence-Based Wellness Programs by Contextualizing Training in Officer Illness & Wellness. Presentation at the Society of Police and Criminal Psychology, Quebec City. Canada.
- Salfati, C. G,, Wiltsey, M. T., and Korzun, E. (2020, November) Law Enforcement Resilience Training Impacts. Annual Meeting of the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology. Online.
