Community Engagement after a Critical Incident: Evaluating Secondary Trauma in Police Departments

This conference workshop presentation educates participants on the relationship of secondary trauma and performance in police departments. Speakers present findings of a police-led mixed methods study on secondary trauma in two police departments. Since 2014, a magnitude of police critical incidents has been publicized in local and national media. Regardless of the impact of these events, police officers are still expected to be resilient, engage the community. As a result, officer activity has been called into question, seeking a desire to understand if police officers are not engaging due to secondary trauma. Secondary trauma is defined as the emotional duress that results when an individual hears about or sees the trauma experienced by another.