Vol. 76, No. 4External submissions

High-profile trauma

From personal impact to community support

Police leaders and front-line members have become better at supporting each other in the aftermath of traumatic exposure and understanding the roles that police can play in the community when high-profile traumas occur. Credit: Moncton Times & Transcript

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There's a standard in the field of trauma response that when the human organism (man, woman, boy or girl) is truly impacted by trauma, they tend to either remember too much or too little of the original trauma they were exposed to.

The reason for this variance among human beings is, in part, due to our own unique physiology and the neurochemical reaction in the brain at the time of traumatic exposure. In other words, trauma is stored in the body at the cellular level and, without proper understanding and support, an individual can't always resolve the symptoms by assuming that "time will heal all wounds."

Profound traumatic exposure untreated will take on a life of its own inside the human organism to the point that many people — months and years after initial exposure — won't make any connection between their current functioning and the role that historical and untreated trauma has played in it.

Police and other emergency responders need to continue growing in their understanding of trauma from a modern scientific perspective. As police leaders and front-line members have become better at supporting each other in the aftermath of traumatic exposure, the benefits are twofold: a heightened quality of professional and personal life for police officers impacted by trauma and a greater understanding of the roles that police can play in the community when high-profile traumas occur.

These roles go beyond the criminal investigation and initial emergency response. Policing agencies that deal in healthy ways with the realities of the impact of trauma on individual members will by nature work better at the community level with children, youth, families and schools impacted by high-profile violence and other traumatic events.

Following the June 4, 2014, shootings in Moncton, N.B., an alert was sent out to professionals across North America entitled Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) protocols must be utilized to their fullest during this extended critical period. This is because from April 2, 2014, when the second Fort Hood, Military Base shooting occurred to the week of the Moncton tragedy, there were more than 15 mass shootings or stabbings across Canada and the United States that were dominating the news.

In four of the shooting incidents, police were targeted. The reason for the alert was simple: the fields of Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) and Crisis/Trauma Response are inseparably connected.

We now understand that high-profile media-focused violence doesn't cause other people to go from no risk to copycatting these tragedies. Instead, high-profile violent traumas intensify already existing symptoms in troubled individuals exposed to the intense media coverage.

We call it the Trauma Violence Continuum (TVC), where even non-violent traumas (e.g. SARS outbreak) can increase violence potential from fearful individuals or conspiracy theorists. And when they act out, serious violence occurs and results in a second trauma, becoming self-perpetuating. However, the TVC becomes even more intensified following blatant cases like the above-noted mass homicides.

In the aftermath of the December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook School Shooting, the author wrote a 15-point consultation report with a focus on ensuring that traumatic aftermath supports were not just for the children, families and school staff but for the many police and emergency responders who were exposed to the carnage of that day and in the days that followed.

One of the greatest mistakes made over the years by our old-fashioned ways of thinking was that professionals of all stripes should be able to just "suck it up and move on." But years of painful learning has made it clear that no uniform is a protection against the very human response to trauma and in some cases, because of unrealistic expectations, the uniform has actually made asking and receiving support a barrier.

A question asked in both VTRA and trauma trainings conducted by the author is "do all police detachments and services function the same?" The same question is asked of hospitals, schools, mental health clinics, fire departments, probation offices, etc. The answer is always "no." A second related question is asked: "Does each police service have its own personality?" The answer is always "yes." Why are these questions relevant?

In the aftermath of the April 1999 Columbine, Colorado, and Taber, Alta. school shootings, it was becoming clear that human-systems dynamics were also a factor in how we respond and recover (or not) from trauma.

From a police perspective that means police services with strong, open and emotionally intelligent leadership will manoeuvre through tragedies with greater success than those led by closed, distant and non-emotional leaders who fail to demonstrate (real or perceived) true caring for their members.

We say that closed systems generate high levels of anxiety internally because as natural symptoms develop and professionals get the message (spoken or unspoken) that they need to just suck it up and move on, they will cease communicating, try to deny their symptoms and deteriorate in a systems-generated pressure cooker. The result we have seen too many times across many professional disciplines goes from substance use as a way of self-medicating to depression, domestic violence, suicide and others.

In the past, we tended to look at these outcomes as individual pathology only (what is wrong with this person?) but we now understand that healthy and open organizations can manage the weight of trauma far better than closed and disconnected systems can. Therefore the modern work in the aftermath of high-profile trauma has been to not just focus on individual responses but on how the overall system responds as well.

The same dynamics that govern how police detachments and larger policing services operate are similar for other human systems like schools, post-secondary institutions and other workplaces. What differs is the type of responsibility and obligations as well as a heightened potential for danger in policing that is not regularly anticipated in these other settings.

And in the case of schools, we include the added dynamic of caring for children and youth. As such, the Traumatic Events Systems (TES) Model was developed to guide schools, police, mental health and other helping professionals in both the initial response and long-term recovery from high-profile violent traumas, suicides, etc. The model has four phases:

  • Phase 1. Initial response: student system
  • Phase 2. Comprehensive strategic assessment: school adult system
  • Phase 3. Community intervention: parent/family system
  • Phase 4. Traumatic aftermath: Preparing schools and communities for the process of recovery

Modelling calm

As relates to schools, police play a huge role in the first principle of crises/trauma response: "model calmness." Because of the Trauma Violence Continuum (TVC), we've seen many cases during Phases 1 and 2 in which traumatized students, parents and even staff, from time to time, become so emotionally incapacitated that they engage in dangerous impulsivity, and they do and say things they normally wouldn't.

We've found that having uniformed police officers assist school staff and counsellors in touching base with identified triaged students (and others) helps to communicate that we're now safe because the school and police are working together.

Especially in the aftermath of school shootings and other serious violence cases or threats of violence that become public (e.g. social networking threats), there are usually several Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) cases that surface within minutes to hours of the original incident.

Police presence in the school staff meetings is essential to provide factual information and give their initial assessment of current risks and any measures being co-operatively taken with other community partners (school, hospital, etc.), while again modelling calmness. If the adults in the school setting are calm, then it will trickle down to the students and parents as well.

Skilled police officers can bring calm to non-policing professionals by their words and demeanor alone. The same modelling of calmness by police is duplicated in Phase 3 where the focus moves to the evening parent/community meeting where again formal police presence is essential. As appropriate, much of the same information is shared with parents but with police also taking a lead in publicly encouraging help not just for students but for parents and caregivers who may need professional support.

When the emotionally closed or distant parent hears a police officer articulate the realities that anyone can be impacted by trauma, many become more willing to be open to help. Where possible, there should be both male and female police officers present who can even briefly encourage fathers and mothers to take an active role in response and recovery.

Phase 4 deals with the fact that some individuals can be traumatized but have a denied or delayed response to the trauma. One of the most predictable critical periods (predictable timeframe for increased threat-making or threat-related behaviour) is the "anniversary reaction."

We've seen suicide pacts and planned shootings all meant to occur on or about the date of the traumatic anniversaries. Even more subtle is the individual deterioration of adults and children alike who've suppressed symptoms or denied their existence until they get close to the anniversary often with no insight into what's happening to them.

Because trauma is stored in the body at the cellular level sometimes even neutral stimuli like a benign smell that was present at the time of traumatic exposure can trigger a delayed response months, a year or more later.

This reality requires police to consider the trauma history of every community in which they serve. That history can then be used as both intelligence gathering for who may be making threats at a particular time and for community support for predictable times at which some may understandably struggle.

J. Kevin Cameron is a board-certified expert in traumatic stress. He is executive director of the Canadian Centre for Threat Assessment & Trauma Response and a Diplomat of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress.

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