Danvers Police Complete Emotional Survival Training

The Danvers Police Department, along with law enforcement officers from 16 other Massachusetts communities, recently had the opportunity to participate in a full-day training session focusing on Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement Officers, led by Kevin Gilmartin, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist and consultant well-known within the public safety/law enforcement community. The training was held April 16 at Wylie Inn and Conference Center at Endicott College in Beverly, MA, and provided free of charge by the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association (MIIA), property and casualty insurance provider for all 17 participating municipalities.

Six Danvers police officers attended the session, which focused on helping police officers strike an appropriate and healthy balance between professional and personal life roles; to improve overall quality of life for themselves and their families; and to avoid falling into a “hyper-vigilance biological rollercoaster.” According to Gilmartin, officers tend to be more aware, energetic, active and alert while on the job – but can easily become socially detached, emotionally down and fatigued while off-duty, falling to the complete opposite end of the rollercoaster. He encouraged attendees to learn to recognize the symptoms of stress and to work to overcome them – and advocated physical fitness, financial responsibility, and personal goal-setting as ways to help combat this biological dip.

Danvers Police Chief Neil Ouellette noted that his department first brought Gilmartin to town in 2007 to conduct a two hour in-service training for officers from Danvers, Beverly and Wenham. “The comments we received from several senior officers was, ‘that’s me, why didn’t anyone ever tell us this before.’” Ouellette said. “As a result of this feedback we required all of our newly hired officers to attend this one day training. We as law enforcement administrators need to expose officers to this information early in their careers, so that they can counter the negative effects from our profession on their well-being and family life.”

Gilmartin is author of the book, “Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement: a Guide for Officers and Their Families,” is a guest instructor at the FBI Academy’s Law Enforcement Executive Development Institute, and an adjunct instructor at multiple law enforcement academies and institutes around the country. Prior to becoming a speaker and trainer, he spent 20 years working in law enforcement in Tucson, AZ, including supervision of hostage negotiation and behavioral science teams. Gilmartin holds a Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology, is a licensed psychologist and U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

Upon completion of this training other MIIA risk- and loss-prevention programs, participating municipalities are eligible to receive insurance premium credits through the MIIA Rewards programs, reducing costs of property and casualty insurance. Rewards programs are developed to help mitigate municipal risk, educate members on issues of topical interest, establish prevention practices, and reward members for implementing innovative programs. Trainings through the Rewards program are presented free of charge by MIIA to its member municipalities..

About MIIA

MIIA is the non-profit, member-based insurance arm of the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) insuring nearly 400 cities, towns, and other public entities in the state. In fiscal year 2012, nearly 8,000 city and town employees participated in nearly 400 MIIA-sponsored technical trainings and management seminars offered throughout the state. Member municipalities' efforts yielded more than $2.6 million of premium credit collectively through the MIIA Rewards incentive program for a 10-year total of over $17.3 million. For more information please visit www.emiia.org and www.mma.org.