Resilience and Well-being in a Scottish Police Force Midj Falconer Dr Susan Klein Professor David A Alexander Postgraduate Awayday 22nd September 2009

Project Objectives To identify: Resilience and vulnerability factors. The mechanisms which promote positive and adaptive outcomes. To compare findings with the benchmark study ‘Police Stress at Work’ by Alexander et al (1993). Resilience and vulnerability factors at individual, environmental and organisational levels.

Project Aims To develop organisational practices to augment the resilience and well-being of Police Officers. To reduce levels of sickness absence and ill-health retiral. e.g. Recruitment, selection, training and organisational change. Average number of sick days for Scottish Police Officers is 10.5 per annum compared to the UK average for all workers of 8.4 (2008). Nearly 1 in 50 (2.2%) officers are on long term sick leave, with long-term being classed as a period of more than 28 days. .

Project Design Both Police Forces are representative of other forces in the Scottish Police Service. In comparison with other studies which have mostly used small sample sizes the large sample size allows generalization of findings. Police Officers will be invited to contribute their experiences of contemporary operational policing through a specially designed online questionnaire administrated at baseline. Officers who are willing to be interviewed and who have experienced a potentially disturbing incident in the 12 months prior will be interviewed to enable an in-depth exploration of trauma-related factors. Participating Officers at baseline will be invited to participate in a 12 month follow-up questionnaire.

Online Administration Benefits Accessibility Coverage Questionnaire Management Hosting Management Interview Management Benefits of online administration in comparison with paper administration. Accessibility: All Officers have access to the questionnaire Coverage: Both Forces have officers stationed across large geographical areas. Hosting management functions: Routing for non applicable questions and allocation of must respond conditions; which can improve participation rates through ease of completion. Interview management functions E-mail invitation and reminders: which have been found to be effective at increasing response rates. Allocation of anonymous study ID numbers for longitudinal studies Prevent multiple responses and non-intended participants

Project Status Consultation With participating organisations Departments Ethical agencies/review Software management providers Key Personnel Who by virtue of their position could make a significant contribution to the design of the questionnaire. Including the Chief Constables, and representatives of the Force Executive, and Human Resources, Welfare and Development and Governance functions. The key aims of the pilot To obtain feedback on the questionnaire format and clarity of instructions, and to ensure that the questionnaire is relevant to contemporary operational policing.

For more information about the project contact Midj Falconer m.falconer2@rgu.ac.uk Aberdeen Centre for Trauma Research Faculty of Health and Social Care/ Institute for Health and Welfare Research Robert Gordon University Aberdeen, Scotland, UK www.rgu.ac.uk/actr