Psychological services
-
Psychological services · Feb 2013
Enhancing services response to crisis incidents involving veterans: a role for law enforcement and mental health collaboration.
When crisis situations involving veterans occur, responding police officers find themselves playing an important role in the spectrum of health and mental health services for those veterans. Crisis response training can help officers respond in a manner that increases safety and optimizes outcomes for all people involved. Yet, current crisis response police training models are only accessible to select officers. ⋯ Consistent with previous literature, the specific in-class gains were not retained on follow-up. However, responding officers widely endorsed use of de-escalation techniques during, and a positive impact of the training on, their interactions with veterans in the 3 months following the training. Implications for future training and policy are discussed.