L•A•W•S Training (Leadership, Accountability, Wellness, Service)

LEADERSHIP • ACCOUNTABILITY • WELLNESS • SERVICE   (LAWS)

Law Enforcement agencies today are experiencing unprecedented challenges when it comes to issues of proposed reforms, complex leadership dynamics, employee morale, and issues pertaining to individual and family wellness. 

Competent leadership (first line supervisors), along with fair and equitable accountability, plays a key role in promoting and enhancing agency morale and the emotional wellness of its employees and their families. The four aspects of L•A•W•S should never be treated as mutually exclusive. 

Leadership Module:

• Examine what it means to be a successful leader and what that looks like in today's policing environment.

• As a leader, understanding the importance of "controlling what you can control" and controlling it well.

• Understanding the impacts that today's policing environment has on officers and their families.

• Develop strategies for effectively creating and maintaining a culture in which team members thrive.

• Examine what it means to "set the tone" of professionalism, integrity, and accountability.

Topics Covered: Responsibilities of an effective leader/coach include, but not limited to motivating, training, disciplining, setting the tone, building a fluid and effective team, providing constructive critique and feedback, and developing a winning culture; learning to have mission driven questions vs. mission statements, and recognize the value of listening. It also includes working effectively with agency leadership; and finally, helping employees to gain confidence in the leadership of their supervisor / commander. 

Accountability Module:

Ensure officers are prepared to successfully intervene with peers as necessary to prevent harm, misconduct, mistakes, and promote the health and wellness of fellow officers. Identify strategies to ensure discipline is fair, equitable, and constructive. To prevent being told, "You should have known".

Topics Covered: Create an environment that encourages team-members to speak up and constructively critique ideas and opinions without fear of reprimand, proactively creating opportunities to identify and mitigate groupthink, taking responsibility for the failures and omissions of those you lead, providing productive and meaningful critique and feedback opportunities'" 

Wellness Module:

• Identify strategies to promote a culture of wellness that is proactively modeled and championed amongst all members of a team, especially their leaders.

• Understand how policing in today's environment is impacting the physical and emotional wellness of our officers and their families.

• Focus will also be placed on the importance of including officer families into available wellness programming.

Topics Covered: Utilizing the Stress Continuum Model to identify employees (sworn and civilian) in times of distress (i.e., suicide ideation, prevention and intervention, substance abuse, post-trauma stress, and more) and how best to support their recovery in the days, weeks, and months following a stress injury; learning the language of self-care, healthy coping, etc. 

Service Module:

• Develop strategies to create a positive imprint between employees and the community.

• Identifying strategies to support employees and their families during times of crisis and controversy.

• Creating a service minded philosophy and strategies toward enhancing family access and education on a small team level.

Topics Covered: Understanding the importance of developing and maintaining strong community partnerships, proactively engaging with diverse populations, and addressing the impact of local, national, and international high-profile events and controversies both internally and within the larger community. How best to support employees and their families during personal and professional times of crisis, i.e., post critical incident, serious injury, illness or death of an employee, serious injury or death to an employee's family member, and more.