The Dispatch | Vol. 4, No. 1, January 2022

‘Wellness Checks’ are Overdue for CSWB Professionals and the Vital Systems They Support

Norman E. Taylor
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being

One of the more common calls for service reported by police is what is often referred to as a “wellness check”, frequently initiated by a caring relative or concerned friend of a subject. Characteristically, such checks might reveal health or mental health conditions requiring urgent attention, but they also might reveal an empty fridge, inadequate housing conditions, isolation, and even persons living under threats and exploitation. Taking this as a metaphor, I am pleased to announce that as we enter 2022 with shared hopes of continuing recovery towards a new normal, our Journal intends to play a significant and active role in stimulating long overdue “wellness checks” for the sectors we serve, and for the professionals that animate them daily with equal parts compassion and endurance.

Coming out of the compounding conditions of 2020-2022 (hopefully soon), any such check-in on our CSWB professionals is bound to reveal any number of urgent needs, and it could set the stage for new paths to their restoration and recovery, re-invention of select services, new policies and practices wherever they may be needed, and to a more equitable and effective human service system going forward.

This theme for our upcoming March issue 7(1) will be set by an opening editorial by Contributing Editor Dr. Linna Tam-Seto. Linna’s research interests include understanding the health and well-being of Canada’s military members, veterans, public safety personnel, and their families with a focus on life transitions and changes. Currently, Linna is working as a Research Associate in the Trauma and Recovery Lab at McMaster University. In her editorial, Dr. Tam-Seto will help to introduce a theme that we anticipate may span the coming year for us, while we continue to populate all issues with other diverse selections as well.

At least one CSWB sector in Canada is well on its way to mobilizing a nation-wide wellness check for its members and its own sub-systems. In my own professional practice, I am finalizing arrangements to serve in the role of Design Lead and Principal Moderator for a Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) national conference event, one that we anticipate will have very high profile with the potential to reach outside our own borders. The working title of the still-forming event is Canadian Policing Wellness Check 2022. Three Standing Committees of the CACP (Human Resources and Learning (HR&L); Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI); and the newly approved Psychological Services Committee (PSC), are each assigning delegates to a Conference Planning Committee. We will soon be reaching out to other interested stakeholder bodies to invite their participation. We expect that a multi-sector range of academics and researchers will also play major roles in the conference design and execution over much of the coming year. The current target date for the event is November 2022, yet to be confirmed and announced by the CACP.

Through my parallel capacity as Editor-in-Chief of the JCSWB, I am hoping to see the Journal play some role in the pre-event and post-event phases of this initiative, specific to policing. Moreover, we also hope to see similar initiatives begin to come to light in other CSWB sectors, and we believe the many voices that shape our global Journal community might help in that regard. Certainly, professionals working in other fields such as health care, social services, substance use and recovery, housing, corrections, courts, and in education at all levels, have all experienced tremendous challenges. No doubt for many, a variety of both fractures and opportunities in their circles of care and their program delivery and funding systems have also been revealed.

We plan to amplify our open call-for-papers over the coming months with an emphasis on this general ‘Wellness Check’ theme across all CSWB sectors. We also invite your ideas and dialogue on how we can all learn from these times: how we can all learn to serve others better; and, how we can all ensure that those serving others know that we care, appreciate and support them in all that they do.

Sometimes, all it takes a friendly knock on the door, with helping hands extended.

JCSWB – A Year in Review, 2021

Any discussion of 2021 must begin by acknowledging the impact that COVID-19 has had on us all, and the challenges it continues to present for our front-line essential services. Although COVID-19 has also disrupted and complicated research practices, it has also revealed that community leaders worldwide have a need for scholarly peer-reviewed research. This is evidenced by the increased number of high-quality manuscripts received by the Journal of CSWB across a diverse set of themes and topics. In 2021, the Journal received 57 submissions and published 38 articles.

A greater distribution of accessible scholarly research has the potential to positively impact and improve multi-sector collaborations and overall approaches to community safety and well-being. This growing need is demonstrated by the Journal’s increased readership, as evidenced through Google Analytics, which indicates a 23% increase in the number of visitors (24,714 vs 20,026) to our website over the past year (Jan 1, 2021 – Dec 31, 2021, vs. Jan 1, 2020 – Dec 31, 2020).

Additional highlights of 2021 include:

Thank you to our Editor-in-Chief, Senior Contributing Editor and Contributing Editor Community for your continued stewardship, to our Reviewers for helping to uphold the quality of work that we publish, to our Authors for trusting us with your research, and to our Readers for choosing to be part of the Journal’s community. Due to the collective efforts of the Journal’s team, contributors, volunteers, partners, and supporters, and despite the obvious challenges, 2021 has been a tremendously successful year. Importantly, we recognize that none of this would be possible without our incredible Mission Supporter, Niche Technology!

We have some exciting plans for the Journal in 2022 to ensure it continues to strengthen and grow, including:

More information and exciting announcements to come in future issues of The Dispatch and through the Journal’s social media channels—stay tuned!

In 2021 we welcomed a record number of 24,714 of website visitors from 174 different countries, published 38 new articles and received 66,815 full-text article views. We look forward to furthering scholarly research to a broad audience dedicated to community safety in 2022.

Continuing Education for Police Leaders

Cal Corley, MBA
CEO, Community Safety Knowledge Alliance

“Leaders create cultures, but cultures, in turn, create the next generation of leaders.” – Edgar H. Schein(1)

A number of trends are converging to super-charge an already dynamic landscape that is challenging police leaders in ways not before experienced. Broad-based calls for social change, together with the so-called ‘defund’ movement are just the tip of the iceberg. Others include the changing nature of harm, and increasing calls for greater responsiveness and accountability. The corresponding movement toward the practice of collaborative community safety is well underway in some jurisdictions. We can expect to expand beyond current interventions occurring in areas as mental health and intimate partner violence.

This movement presents two challenges for today’s leaders. First, as the Council of Canadian Academies noted in its 2014 Policing Canada in the 21st Century report (2), establishing and maintaining new forms of partnerships will present challenges for the police, who have not generally refined such skills. The second, more concerning challenge pertains to police culture and its implications for this movement. Generalizing from Mr. Justice Iacobucci’s 2014 report, Police Encounters with People in Crisis (3), an undercurrent within contemporary police culture resists the fact that police work “…inherently involves a social work aspect and a mental healthcare aspect” and that “…related to this view is a perception by some officers that the work of units like the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) is less important, and does not involve true policing” (p. 123). Such views are unhelpful, as Mr. Justice Iacobucci noted.

Edgar Schein’s seminal book, Organizational Culture and Leadership, first published in 1985, has stood the test of time and is now in its fifth edition. According to Schein, the ‘leadership – culture – future leaders’ cycle presents a real challenge for organizations. Little wonder that nearly 40 years into the community policing era, significant vestiges of paramilitary culture remain alive and well in many agencies.

Leadership development is a fundamental part of breaking this culture cycle. Leaders at all levels will benefit from a deeper understanding of organizational culture and its underlying role in times of change. Such understanding lays a foundation for focusing on the why and the how. Why elements of organizational culture are helpful in moving to an era marked by the practice of collaborative community safety and how to re-balance perceptions of the relative value of upstream preventative police work with that placed on the more traditional law aspects of policing - enforcement and investigations. These small but important adjustments - including to leadership development curriculum - will help shape effective pathways to break the ‘leadership – culture – future leaders’ cycle, thus enabling the alignment of culture with strategy.

CPKN Collaborating to Develop Leadership and Community Engagement Learning Solutions

Canadian Police Knowledge Network (CPKN) is spearheading several collaborative initiatives to address two critical issues facing policing -- leadership education and community engagement.

Leadership Education: In response to a sector-wide lack of blended leadership education, CPKN is piloting a new model based on the Canadian Credible Leadership Series that includes live facilitated sessions and group accountability. The program will be built in collaboration with training leaders and will be customizable to serve both large and small services. Additionally, in order to bring more diverse experiences to police leadership, CPKN is consulting with Indigenous police and community leaders on a blended pilot model specifically for Indigenous officers and officers working with Indigenous communities.

Community Engagement Training: To address the need for stronger police trust and confidence, CPKN is partnering with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Human Resource and Learning Committee to identify key training gaps in community engagement. This initiative will conduct an in-depth analysis of existing courses related to how police officers engage citizens and the communities they serve, and then create a list of endorsed and vetted materials. Based on their findings, the group will develop additional learning solutions, such as training in the areas of cultural competence and trauma-informed policing.

Have you had the chance to read our September issue? To view the Table of Contents and articles from this issue, please visit:

https://www.journalcswb.ca/index.php/cswb/issue/view/22

Highlights from this issue include:

Compassion as a leadership competency in justice
[Editorial]
Daniel J. Jones

Peeling the paradigm: Exploring the professionalization of policing in Canada
[Social Innovation Narrative]
Kelly W. Sundberg, Christina Witt, Graham Abela, Lauren M. Mitchell

Sex industry slavery: Protecting Canada’s youth—A book review
[Book Review]
Julie Craddock

Law enforcement wellness: Promoting the “good” during the “bad” and “ugly”
[Social Innovation Narrative]
Konstantinos Papazoglou, Katy Kamkar, Jeff Thompson

Research of Dr. Bob Chrismas Referenced in Significant Court Decision – R. vs Alcorn, 2021 MBCA 101

Dr. Bob Chrismas’ research and book “Sex Industry Slavery: Protecting Canada’s Youth” is referenced in the Court of Appeal of Manitoba’s decision (R. vs Alcorn, 2021 MBCA 101) to overturn the sentence of a Winnipeg man convicted of sexually exploiting a minor from 15 months to 5 years. Learn more about this significant decision and the research by Dr. Chrismas here.

Help us Expand the Reach and Impact of the JCSWB

Thank You to our Reviewers

The Journal team would like to acknowledge and thank the peer reviewers who reviewed manuscripts for the Journal in 2021. These experts volunteer their valuable time and expertise to provide thoughtful comments, recommendations, and insightful guidance to our authors.

Did you know? Getting involved in the peer review process can be a highly rewarding experience that can also improve your own research and help to further your career.

Ready to get involved? Registration is fast and easy! Visit our “For Reviewers” page to learn more.

Submit your Research to the Journal of CSWB – an OPEN ACCESS Publication

Did you know that the Journal of CSWB is an OPEN ACCESS publication? The Journal publishes peer-reviewed content under an open access creative commons license, where all articles are freely available and permanently accessible immediately upon publication, without subscription or registration barriers.

If you are interested in having your meeting featured in our newsletter, please contact JCSWBCommunity@sgpublishing.ca.