What Chiefs Can Do in Response to Declining Officer Candidates: A National Police Wellness Program

Dr. Robin Inwald is the recipient of IACP's 2020 Leadership in the Field of Police and Public Safety Psychology Award. In 2019, she founded and developed the National Public Safety Wellness Program, a comprehensive evidence-based training and evaluation program for police/public safety organizations (info@NPSWP.com or Nationalpublicsafetywellness.com). She is the author of Strategies for Coping with Crisis (https://www.amazon.com/Strateg... or https://books2read.com/u/47r2aN), an e-book with a customized version privately available for police/public safety officers and administrators facing unprecedented challenges today. Dr. Inwald wrote the first comprehensive personality inventory (Inwald Personality Inventory-IPI-1979) and Law Enforcement Personal History Questionnaire (LEPHQ-1978) designed and validated for public safety officer selection using public safety norms and behavioral data items. She realized the need for guidelines in this field and authored the first two written sets of guidelines for conducting pre-employment screening programs (1984) and 'fitness-for-duty' evaluations (1986) in police/public safety agencies. Her independent surveys and research led to these being the first guidelines amended and adapted by IACP's Police Psychological Services Section and the field at large.  By 2009, the IPI had been used in thousands of police/public safety organizations worldwide. The developer of over 50 tests and surveys, Dr. Inwald also authored the first comprehensive personality inventory for law enforcement 'fitness-for-duty' (HCSI-1986), the first 'psychological job analysis' designed to focus on personality variables (HJAQ-1990), and the first validated all-purpose inventory for measuring 'emotional intelligence' (Hilson Personnel Profile/Success Quotient-HPP/SQ-1988). The founder and director of Hilson Research, Inc., Dr. Inwald conducted or supervised over 30,000 candidate screenings and hundreds of test & procedure validation projects for over 30 years. This included the first published five-year longitudinal prediction study for public safety officers (employing cross-validation and discriminant function equation prediction of officer termination and other work-related behaviors-1988).  From 1978-2009, prior to the advent of social media, Dr. Inwald developed a phone and convention-based network of over 2,000 psychologists and administrators working in the public safety field. As the first full-time police/public safety psychologist to be granted Diplomate status by the American Board of Forensic Psychology (ABFP) and American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), Dr. Inwald holds other diplomates from the American Board of Assessment Psychology (ABAP), the Society for Police & Criminal Psychology (SPCP), and the American Board of Police & Public Safety Psychology (now ABPP). During her career, she has authored several books/chapters, & hundreds of articles/presentations. An American Psychological Association Fellow, Dr. Inwald received her Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. Dr. Inwald received the 'Distinguished Award for Outstanding Scientific Research in the field of Police & Public Safety Psychology' from the American Psychological Association's Police & Public Safety Section of the Division of Psychologists in Public Service (2010). She also received the 'Scholarship Award' from the IACP Police & Public Safety Section in 2012, recognizing an individual 'who has made a significant contribution through creative intellectual work to advance the field of police psychology.' In 2017, with Dr. McCoy-Arballo, Dr. Inwald received the Society of Police Crim Psy Davis Award for 'Best data-driven presentation-Screening Profiles & Vicarious Trauma of First Responders, Police, Chiefs, and Firefighters.' Since 2007, Dr. Inwald has focused on mentoring colleagues interested in conducting publishable research studies (Contact: NPSWP.com)

Dr. Nathan Thompson is a licensed psychologist in Arizona and operates Arizona Police Psychology.  He specializes in working with public safety primarily in completing preemployment psychological evaluations, fitness for duty evaluations, counseling, critical incident debriefings, and consultation with law enforcement agencies.  He is the mental health advisor for the state peer support board and works with various peer support team leaders.

Tammy McCoy-Arballo, Psy.D. is a licensed psychologist in California who treats first responders and their families for the Counseling Team International. She is a hostage negotiator who works with two agencies in Southern California. She teaches law enforcement academy classes on Suicide by Cop and Cop Suicide. Dr. McCoy-Arballo responded to the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival attack in Las Vegas and the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino, CA. Beyond treatment, she does extensive research on pre-employment screening of law enforcement candidates. Her research on pre-employment screenings with Dr. Robin Inwald has won them the Bob Davis Award for their work at the 2017 national conference for Society of Police and Criminal Psychology, of which she is an active member. 

Penelope W. Dralle, Ph.D., is a senior consulting psychologist, licensed in clinical psychologist (LA LIC 178), and certified in Police and Public Safety Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology.  Dr. Dralle developed a program for screening and selection of public safety applicants for the City of New Orleans while an Associate Professor at Louisiana State University Medical School (LSUMS).  After additional specialized training and credentialing, she established her own psychological consulting firm (2006) and now provides consulting, training, screening, and evaluation services to police, fire, and public safety organizations, locally and nationally.  She has related publications and presentations, is active in the Police and Public Safety Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and has held leadership positions with other organizations.