Evaluating blue courage : a national evaluation of the blue courage training program

The impact of stress on police officers has profound implications for both the wellness of individual officers and the legitimacy of policing as field. Stress produces a litany of negative impacts on officer health, including direct impacts like a higher risk of heart disease and a shorter life expectancy as well as indirect effects like an increased risk of the development of harmful coping mechanisms like substance abuse. More recently, the impacts of stress on individual officers have been observed to spill over and negatively affect community-police relations as officers struggle to contain emotional responses when under stress or withdraw from critical functions of police work, like community engagement, as a way to manage stress.This study performed an evaluation of a holistic police training program called Blue Courage, which is designed to educate officers about the impact of stress and provide them with tools to improve the health and wellness of themselves and the profession writ large. This study was a mixed-methods process and outcome evaluation of the training program, and consisted of observations of the training, interviews with key program staff, and the use of a case study model to elucidate aspects of the Blue Courage train-the-trainer model of delivery. Additional, data from 681 training participants, collected between June of 2017 and September of 2018 was used to determine the impact of the training on a number of attitudes central to officer health and wellness. At the conclusion of this dissertation, discussions of the findings and future directions for research are discussed. Additionally, several policy recommendations for the Blue Courage organization are provided.