Massachusetts Police about to repeat DOD failure

Massachusetts Police about to repeat DOD failure
by
Chaplain Kathie

If they make the mistake of copying what the military is doing, then the police department is about to make it a lot worse for their officers coming back from combat.

Leo F. Polizoti of Worcester, a law enforcement psychologist for 34 years, said some police departments give returning veterans a two-to-four-week transition period when they return to work to gradually reacclimate to the department and police work. He recently developed a critical incident resilience training program for police departments that is similar to one the Army is working on. The program helps officers learn how to better handle critical stress incidents before they go to combat as well as traumatic experiences on the job such as deadly car accidents.


“If we can help them to develop more resilience before going over there, they'll have more resiliency and less psychological problems with their return,” he said.

I am not sure who started this claim that "resiliency" training works but I do know all the evidence is in and it is a monstrous failure. Numbers don't lie. The number of suicides in the military has gone up since they began to take this approach. For July alone, the Army lost 32 to suicide, Marines lost 4 but 17 more attempted it.

This approach began in 2003.

AMEDD To Introduce Battlemind Video

September 02, 2008
Army News Service
FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas -- The Army Medical Department Center and School, co-developers of Battlemind training, will release a new Battlemind training video next year to help foster resiliency in deploying Soldiers.

Battlemind training, or "Armor for the Mind," is the U.S. Army's psychological resiliency-building program. It was first developed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C., as a result of compiled data from a land-combat study.

The mental-health training that came about from this study builds on Soldiers' proven strengths, and consists of two critical components: self-confidence and mental toughness. It teaches Soldiers how to apply those critical components when they leave for deployment and how to use those same survival skills when they transition back home.

The program focuses on a Soldier's inner strength to face fear and adversity in combat and other military deployments with courage. The training is divided into three sections: Deployment Cycle, Life Cycle and Soldier Support, and is given at pivotal points in a Soldier's career. The training is mandatory and is currently being facilitated by Army chaplains who are taught how to conduct the training at the AMEDDC&S.

The new movie-like training video, developed with AMEDD Television, was created to cover the deployment portion of Battlemind training.

"What we've learned is that education directed toward younger Soldiers and young adults has to be more plug-n-play," said Mike Hagan, chief of the Battlemind Training Office at the AMEDDC&S. "Therefore, what we wanted to do was to create something that was entertaining and realistic and also that gets the messages across in sound bites, because this is how they (young Soldiers) receive messages, and that was my goal for doing this production."

The training, to be given prior to deployment, will cover the seven deployment phases and promote resilience in dealing with the psychological impacts that Soldiers could face during combat and other military deployments.

The way Battlemind training is taught has been modified several times since its inception in 2003.
read more here

But the DOD changed the name as if the title of the program was the problem. In tiny print on the right side of the banner you see "formerly Battlemind" in other words, the same thing.

One more factor in all of this is the VA's Suicide Prevention Hotline. If Battlemind worked when it began in 2003, would they need to have one in 2007?

July 30, 2007
VA’s Suicide Hot Line Begins Operations
Nicholson: “Help a Phone Call Away”

WASHINGTON – To ensure veterans with emotional crises have round-the-clock access to trained professionals, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has begun operation of a national suicide prevention hot line for veterans.

“Veterans need to know these VA professionals are literally a phone call away,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson. “All service members who experience the stresses of combat can have wounds on their minds as well as their bodies. Veterans should see mental health services as another benefit they have earned, which the men and women of VA are honored to provide.”

The toll-free hot line number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). VA’s hot line will be staffed by mental health professionals in Canandaigua, N.Y. They will take toll-free calls from across the country and work closely with local VA mental health providers to help callers.

To operate the national hot line, VA is partnering with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“The hot line will put veterans in touch – any time of the day or night, any day of the week, from anywhere in the country – with trained, caring professionals who can help,” added Nicholson. “This is another example of the VA’s commitment to provide world-class health care for our nation’s veterans, especially combat veterans newly returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The suicide hot line is among several enhancements to mental health care that Nicholson has announced this year. In mid July, the Department’s top mental health professionals convened in the Washington, D.C., area to review the services provided to veterans of the Global War on Terror.

VA is the largest provider of mental health care in the nation. This year, the Department will spent about $3 billion for mental health. More than 9,000 mental health professionals, backed up by primary care physicians and other health professionals in every VA medical center and outpatient clinic, provide mental health care to about 1 million veterans each year.

VA Suicide Hotline has received almost 225,000 calls was a headline on this blog for February 2010. One more indication that Battlemind did not work. Had it worked, there wouldn't be that many contemplating suicide. If either program was really successful, the numbers would have gone down. What no one is talking about is the fact that many veterans, survivors of combat, found it so impossible to live after combat they felt the need to call the Suicide Prevention Hotline in the first place. While they have managed to save a lot of lives and claim rescues in the thousands, it is further proof that resiliency training has been a failure. Reporter James Dao of The New York Times reported "The hot line has chalked up 10,000 rescues since 2007." Taking Calls From Veterans on the Brink July 30, 2010.

Again, numbers don't lie.

Every year we're reading the numbers go up, attempted suicides go up and the calls pouring into the Suicide Prevention Hotline go up. If Battlemind, no matter what title they put on the program, worked, then it would have been proven in the numbers. So why do they continue to support a failed approach like this? Eight years? How many more years of data do they need to wake up and finally understand that in the battle to save their lives they are unarmed?

Does anyone do any research anymore before they consider replicating a failed program? How could any police department even consider using this to save the lives of their own people?

War's trauma comes home
By Elaine Thompson TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

When one of his police officers returned from two tours of duty in Iraq, Rowley Police Chief Robert R. Barker could tell he just wasn't the same.

Chief Barker said 30-year-old Thomas Lantych had been an active reserve police officer who had shown a lot of promise during the year before he was deployed. But a few months after he returned, authorities began to notice erratic behavior by the officer, who was also a full-time firefighter in Beverly.

A month after being placed on medical leave to get counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder, Mr. Lantych's vehicle struck and killed a motorist. Police said he seemed emotionless at the scene and investigators subsequently determined that the crash had been overwhelmingly avoidable. Mr. Lantych was convicted of vehicular homicide earlier this year and is now serving a year in jail.

“He wasn't grounded like he was before he left. It seemed like he was hyperemotional. He seemed, I guess, I would classify it as euphoric,” Chief Barker said in a recent telephone interview.

A. Wayne Sampson, executive director of the Grafton-based Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said law enforcement leaders are concerned about police officers who resume their duties or join the profession after serving their country in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's of greater concern for law enforcement than other professions, he said, because police work can trigger flashbacks of combat experiences. A loud noise or sight of a handgun, for example, could cause an officer to become hypervigilant — as if he's in combat — resulting in a wide range of reactions from hiding behind his vehicle to crying.
read more here

Battlemind did not work then and it will not work now. They don't use slingshots anymore to defeat a gigantic enemy but in this case, the stone is just a pebble.

What works? They were already doing it when they have Crisis Intervention Teams responding right after a traumatic event. In this case, most of the time, it is many months after the traumatic events in combat. Ideally the sooner the better but at least it can be done as soon as possible. Let them train veterans in Crisis Intervention so that the newer combat veterans have someone to talk to who can help them heal and offer emotional support.