Officer Stress and Wellness: Bringing Practitioners and Researchers Together

DAN GRUPE: Police officer stress is an issue that affects not just these officers but their families, their relationships-- and really everybody in society. So by partnering together, researchers and academics, we can make sure that we have all the stakeholders involved in solving what's really a big problem and a problem that I'm not going to be able to solve by myself just working alone within the university.

WENDY STIVER: There's a real key piece and understanding data and then applying it in a practical and usable way. So I think we we really have to work to build these relationships between researchers and practitioners to make data usable, to understand it better, and to understand better how to use that data to improve the lives and the safety of our officers.

CHRISTOPHER SCALLON: By ourselves we're our own worst enemy because you'll -- you'll get the academic side they'll be like, "You know what, this is-- we need to look at this more analytically," and stuff like that; and then you get the practical side, who's like, "Well you know what, you can talk about getting shot but it's a little bit different when you get shot," kind of thing. But when you bring those two together it's that creates a synergy of both practical experience and just really vetted academic, you know-- you know-- foundations.